An Unexpected Dragonborn
by Midwinter's-Night-Dream-86
Summary: A ragtag group of adventurers? Check. The burglar? Pending. An elf who calls herself Dragonborn and . . . Smaug's older brother? What! Thorin and Co. might have more than they can handle when a new hero joins their Quest to Reclaim a Homeland and Slay a Dragon. Semi serious crack!fic.
1. An Unexpected Dragonborn

_**Steps up to the mic**__: Hi, folks. It's me, Winter, here with another story. If you know me from my one shots, poems, epic failures, and vignettes, this is nothing like that. This is my Magnum Opus!_

**_"But what about _****Infamy's Daughter****_?"_**

_Good question! You can find the answer to that on my newly updated profile, but if you're too lazy to go peek, I'll spill the beans here: I am by no means ready to write _Infamy's Daughter_ as it should be. It's a full blown epic fantasy novel that needs time, love, and understanding. While I have the love, the other two are lacking, and it's just not ready to be realized yet. _

**_"So what's this?"_**

_This is _An Unexpected Dragonborn_, an ongoing project I've been working on off and on for the last five years. Some of the early stuff might seem dated or childish, but I'm slowly going back through and editing it. The story isn't finished, but I wrote the last word to chapter fifty this morning and decided, "What the heck!" I might as well share it, right?_

_So, what happens when the Dragonborn arrives on the doorstep of Bag-End, having broken the Fourth Wall to get there? Well, read on to find out..._

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter One — An Unexpected Dragonborn**_

.

Bilbo Baggins of Bag-End had had it.

There were dwarves all over his beloved Hobbit hole! Thirteen of them! And they'd cleared out his entire pantry of food! He'd have to make at least six trips to the market to make it halfway decent again!

"Gandalf, tell me that no one else is coming!" Bilbo begged the tall grey wizard.

"Well...I believe everyone is here," the wizard informed him.

Before Bilbo could sigh in slight relief, there was a thunderous knock on the door. Startled, the Hobbit went to answer it as all the dwarves filed into the foyer and gathered round.

Bilbo opened the door to reveal a lightly golden skinned she-elf with dark reddish brown hair and crystal blue eyes. Kinda like if Boromir (who no one knows yet because his father is only about nine at the moment) was a girl and an elf. She wore strange armor (Akaviri if you must know) and had a glowing ebony longsword. A lavender Magelight shimmered above her head and she smiled maniacally.

"Hi! I'm Leara Rose-blade! I heard you guys were hunting a dragon and I decided to travel from my home far away to help." She had what we would call a British accent, more accurately, a London accent, even though London and Britain don't exist.

"How do you know of our top secret quest?" demanded Thorin Oakenshield, the majestic leader of the not-so-majestic quest.

"Well, I was visiting with my friend and mentor Paarthurnax when he mentioned that he had heard of the evil dragon Smaug who had stolen your mountain. I did some investigating and found out that dwarves were leading the quest. I've never met a dwarf before! They all disappeared from where I live. Calcemo would be so jealous!"

"And Calcemo is...?" Gandalf prompted when Leara Rose-blade seemed to be finished speaking.

"He's my high elven wizard buddy who's obsessed with dwarves!"

"Dear Mahal..." Dwalin muttered

"Disturbing on so many levels..." Glóin whispered.

"I am 170% done," Bilbo said. "Out of my house!"

Suddenly everyone was outside (except for Bilbo, of course). It was cold and dark despite the fact that it was almost May.

Suddenly (again), a blond guy with fancy warrior clothes made of fur and leather came running up. "Leara...don't run...off...and...leave me at that...inn with...with a bunch of...of short and strange people!" he gasped in a voice rather similar to Thorin's in range and frequency.

"Oh Ulfric! I was gonna come back for you!" Leara smiled, patting the poor guy on the shoulder.

Everyone stared at them.

"This is Ulfric Stormcloak! He and Oak-y over there are very similar in many ways down to the fact that they both really don't like elves. Except Stormy here doesn't hate me cos I saved his butt a million times too many. The two even have that one elf they detest above all others!" Leara rattled off.

"Wow, you really do investigate when you say you investigate!" Kíli exclaimed. "I wanna be just like you!"

"Chill bro, just chill," Fíli said, doing the weird 'stay down' gesture that is typically used for dogs with his hands.

"How exactly do you propose killing the dragon?" Balin asked.

This time Ulfric answered them, "Leara is the Dragonborn, the ultimate dragon slayer. She kills dragons on a near daily basis. She has dragon skulls decorating her house. She even hangs out with this one nice dragon on top of this mountain. She also saved the whole world from the World Eating dragon Alduin. She has dragon blood which allows her to use the dragon language in spectacular ways. Leara uses this shout called Dragonrend which knocks dragons out of the sky and forcing them to land. She lives and breathes 'DRAGON'."

The word 'dragon' hung heavy in the air.

"So...let us now be off!" Leara Rose-blade said. She then gave the Company, Gandalf, and Ulfric an expectant glance.

"Um...we don't have any mode of transportation," Bofur said. And this was true since the ponies they would have gotten haven't been brought up from the South Farthing yet.

"Um...idea!" Leara screamed, causing several Hobbits in Hobbiton to fall over screaming "Nazgûl! Nazgûl!"

"Leara, please don't..."

"What's she going to do?"

"She's—"

"OD AH VIING!"

"What did she say?"

"Well..."

"Wait — what's that—?"

Suddenly, with a noise like a hurricane, a great red dragon (ironically the same color and size as Smaug, just with more horns on his head) came down upon them.

"DRAGON!"

"DRAGON!"

"MUMMY SAVE ME!"

Everyone glanced at Dwalin but otherwise continued screaming.

"Odahviing!" cried a happy Leara Rose-blade as she hugged the very embarrassed Dovah on the muzzle.

"Dovahkiin, why have you summoned me this time? I'm not going to pose as your father so you can get into that bar in Elsweyr...again," Odahviing said by way of greeting.

"No, Odahviing, I just need you to help carry fifteen others and myself to Erebor. You know, that place your baby brother took over," Leara Rose-blade explained.

"Holy Mahal's hammer! Not only have you called a dragon upon us but it's Smaug's older brother? You have brought our doom upon us all, you she-elf witch!" Thorin cried, stomping his feet.

Odahviing and Leara stared at him and Ulfric and Gandalf face palmed in unison.

"So..." Odahviing looked back at the high elf. "I can only carry about five or six. You should call the other two."

Leara Rose-blade nodded thoughtfully, staring at the Company, the Jarl of Eastmarch, and Gandalf. She then turned and her voice shook the foundations of Arda and Nirn themselves, in whatever weird way they're connected.

"PAAR THUR NAX! DUR NEH VIIR!"

Suddenly, like a thunder battle and the smashing of mountains upon mountains, two more dragons came down from the sky.

"KUN OKAAZ PEYT TUZ!" cried a happy Durnehviir, shouting Leara Rose-blade's name as it appeared in the dragon tongue. He happily nudged the Dragonborn with his muzzle and she patted his nose.

All the dwarves fell over from the sheer force of the undead dragon's happy shout, but Gandalf remained upright. He and Paarthurnax regarded each other with furrowed brows.

"Kunokaaz Peyttuz?" Ulfric asked, getting to his feet.

"Shut up, stupid face," Leara told him.

"Why have you summoned us? Kunokaaz? I was in the middle of 'Eragon'," Paarthurnax questioned, looking from the wizard to the elf.

"That movie sucked," Nori whispered to Dori and Ori.

"I speak of the book," Paarthurnax told them and the three Ri brothers fell over again out of terror.

"I'm sorry, my master, but I need you to assist me in carrying these dwarves to the Lonely Mountain so we can deal with Smaug," Leara explained.

Paarthurnax nodded in thought. "Yes...Dibella and Arkay's son is cranky." He then glared at Odahviing. "You should take better care of your siblings!"

The red dragon huffed, catching Óin and Glóin's beards on fire. As the two tried to stamp out the flames, Odahviing spoke, "I was busy at the time, dealing with that fellow with the blue box."

Ulfric blinked, "He came and bothered you too? He tried to take all the Dunmer kids from the Grey Quarter! I—"

"Shut up, stupid face!" Leara Rose-blade snapped.

"I say, do you really think these dragons can carry us all to Erebor?" Gandalf inquired of the high elf.

Leara shrugged, "I suspect so."

"No! I will not ride on a dragon with an elf! I would rather—" Gandalf hit Thorin on the head with his staff and the dwarf king fell over, unconscious.

"Ooh! I haven't seen a dwarf fall over in ages!" Durnehviir laughed. He poked Thorin with his right fore claw but the dark haired dwarf refused to move.

"Okay...now let us be off!" Leara Rose-blade exclaimed, striking a valiant pose.

·•*°*•·

**Disclaimer: **_Let this stand for the whole story: I don't own The Elder Scrolls, The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, or any other media that appear in this melting pot of a fanfic. Just Leara Rose-blade and any other of my OCs that may appear in this story. Furthermore, nothing in this story is meant to be offensive or cruel toward anyone. Some jokes made are childish and dumb, but that's all they are meant to be. _

_Thank you for reading! Why not drop me a line in the box below and tell me just how this random piece of lit made you feel? Even a simple thumbs up is encouragement to a writer! ~Winter XOXO_


	2. Thorin and the Terrible, No Good Start

_I don't think I'm going to make a habit of posting two chapters at once, but I think once a week — let's shoot for Friday's — should be good. That gives me...oh, a year or so to produce more so as to keep up with the updating. That should work. I think _

_I hope..._

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Two — Thorin and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Start**_

Our Altmeri Heroine, along with her moody Jarl sidekick, Gandalf, Thorin the Majestically Unconscious, Kíli Not Cool, and Fíli Not Cool Either all got cozy on Paarthurnax. The Ri brothers, Balin, and Dwalin all got on Durnehviir, abate they were uncomfortable because he's somewhat undead. Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Óin, and Glóin had to squeeze on Odahviing (because Bombur is fat and Óin is fidgety).

Fifteen minutes after Leara's valiant exclamation, the three dragons carrying thirteen dwarves, one high elf of Altmeri origin, a wizard dressed in a color fitting every fashion season, and a Nord who may or may not be (is) blond took off.

They flew through the air for a while before something unmerciful befell them: Thorin, woke up and started whining.

"I don't like dragons or elves or blond people!"

"Shut up!"

"Thorin, do behave!"

"Hey!" After Leara and Gandalf, Ulfric and Fíli now took the time to look insulted.

"Fíli...you're not a people," an unhelpful Kíli told his blond headed brother.

Suddenly, everyone's stomachs fell from under their ribcages and plummeted to the wilderness below.

Well...

In all actuality, the three dragons tucked in their wings and they themselves plummeted to the earth and everyone else fell off of their backs.

"AHH!"

"AHH!"

"MUMMY!"

"UNCLE SHEO!"

"EEK!"

"GALMAR! MY TEDDY BEAR!"

"MOOSE!"

The party of sixteen human-esque people tumbled into a large pile of brambles. Well, Leara used a Shout and caught herself in midair before drifting down on to a bed of moss. Gandalf, in turn, landed like a cat on its feet.

Everybody else fell in a tangled, messy heap.

"Paarthurnax!" Leara Rose-blade whined, looking up at the grey-white dragon hovering above her.

"I heard the timer dinging on my sweetrolls," Paarthurnax wailed with remorse.

"Seriously?" Ulfric asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeperuni!" Paarthurnax exclaimed, nodding his massive head.

"My butt hurts," Kili groaned.

"My jacksie hurts."

"My ar—"

"THORIN! SHUT YER TRAP!" Leara screamed at the dwarf king, causing him to stumble backwards in shock.

"Uh, Kunokaaz, my time of summons is almost up!" Durnehviir wept, causing great drops of steaming tears to fall on the dwarves, sending them running around in chaos.

"I'm sorry, bud, I'll call you back later," Leara Rose-blade soothed, petting his neck.

Durnehviir nodded his gratitude before, with a boom and a plume of green smoke, he vanished.

"That is intriguing. However do you summon them?" Gandalf asked, coming up beside the Dragonborn.

Leara shrugged, "Uh...oh...oh, it's magic, you know."

While they spoke, Paarthurnax took off, leaving them with just Odahviing. The thirteen dwarves and Ulfric stared at him and he stared back.

None of them blinked.

"Where are we?" Leara Rose-blade asked Gandalf, both oblivious to their awkward companions.

"I believe we're in the Trollshaws," Gandalf told her after looking around for a moment.

"Trollshaws, eh? I suppose that means trolls and ogres live in these parts?"

"The trolls live up in the northern hills and scarcely come this far southward. I don't think there are any ogres though," Gandalf explained, gesturing with his hands and staff.

"Really? Remind me to tell you guys the story of how my grandma killed a bunch of trolls made of paint," Leara giggled, cracking up.

"That sounds most interesting, Miss Rose-blade."

"It was, and—"

"ODAHVIING! SPIT THORIN OUT RIGHT NOW!"

Leara and Gandalf turned to see Odahviing sitting in the typical dragon sitting position with something dangling out of his mouth.

On closer inspection, it was everything above Thorin Oakenshield's knees.

"Odahviing!" Leara Rose-blade cried, running forward and yanking on the dwarf's boots.

You see, while the Altmer and the Istar had been conversing, Thorin, trying to be majestic and impressive, had tried to banish Odahviing with his sword.

Odahviing had then attempted to eat him.

Fíli and Kíli thought it was funny. Everyone else...not so much. Thus leading to Ulfric's outburst which had drawn Leara and Gandalf's attention, leading to Leara trying to pull Thorin out of the red Dovah's giant maw.

"Odahviing! You can't eat him!" admonished Leara Rose-blade as she was joined by Bofur and Glóin in pulling at Thorin's feet. This was a bit hard as there were three of them and Thorin only had two legs

"Dragon! Spit Thorin Oakenshield out this instant!" Gandalf bellowed, appearing as if he'd grown ten feet tall.

To most people (especially Hobbits and dwarves) this was very intimidating and even threatening. Seeing as Odahviing was the size of a large hill, he just quirked an eyebrow, but spat Thorin out anyway.

Leara Rose-blade, Bofur, and Glóin leaped back several feet when Thorin flowed out of Odahviing's mouth in a thick river of saliva.

"That is so gross," Ori whispered.

"Ori!" exclaimed Dori. "Behave!"

"Uncle?" Fíli inquired, poking his uncle's dry left foot (the only dry part of him actually) with the toe of his boot.

"Greh!"

"He'll be fine!" Leara said, slapping both Fíli and Kíli on the back.

"May I ask why you did that?" Balin asked the red dragon.

Odahviing shrugged, "He irks me."

Balin nodded, deeming this a fitting answer.

Leara Rose-blade bent over the soaking wet Thorin.

"Hey, do you wanna get dried off?" she asked in gentle tones.

"Yeah," he whimpered.

"Oaky doky, then," the Dragonborn straightened up. "Everyone stand back."

Everyone — including the curious Gandalf, the worried Balin, and the bored Odahviing — stepped back about half a dozen paces.

Leara Rose-blade grinned at Thorin, who's eyes opened wide in horror at her demonic expression. Leara cleared her throat, adjusted her position, and, opening her mouth wide, she took a deep breath and...

"FUS RO DAH!"

Thorin, already on the ground, slammed hard against it, all traces of damp and wet dissipating in the fierce wind Leara had spat out.

"Leara..." Ulfric face palmed.

Fíli, Kíli, Balin, and Dwalin scrambled forward and pulled the dazed Thorin to his feet.

"Leara...stop being so dramatic," Ulfric pleaded as the Altmeri Heroine in question fist bumped one of Odahviing's talons.

"Hm? What was that, my dear boy?" Leara turned and smiled at him. Ulfric released a weary sigh.

Gandalf turned and stared off toward the east, almost as if he was staring at a chocolate fountain. He then turned to Leara as Thorin began to upheave the soup from Bilbo Baggins' Hobbit hole all over Dwalin.

"Miss Rose-blade?" the wizard spoke in a questioning manner.

"Oui, Monsieur Gandalf?" she queried, turning away from the chilled out Odahviing and the exasperatedly exasperated as crap Ulfric to face the wizard.

Gandalf, despite all his shortcomings, understood French even though that language doesn't exist in Nirn or Arda. "Would you care to walk with me? I believe there's something important that should be tended to."

Leara Rose-blade nodded. "Ulfric, you're in charge."

"Yes!" the Jarl of Eastmarch cheered.

"No!" Thorin sobbed, upchucking, this time, on Fíli, who began to sob himself.

"Whatevs," Odahviing shrugged, rolling over and squishing a cake Bombur had been trying to make.

The wizard and the Altmer walked off, speaking about something in French (even though the language still doesn't exist there), leaving the group of fifteen sitting there.

"So...Jennifer Lawrence is hawt," Kíli said leaning against Odahviing. He clicked his tongue at the group and winked.

"Kíli...dude..." Fíli moaned, using Bombur's braided beard lasso thing to wipe off the partially digested soup from Bilbo Baggins's Hobbit hole.

"BLONDIE! SHUT UP!" Thorin screamed before spasming and slapping Fili in the nose.

"The CHEESE!" Fíli yelped, grabbing his throbbing red nose and jumping away from his nutty uncle.

"Mortals are so amusing," Odahviing chuckled. His body vibrated with the laughter, causing Kili to vibrate as well.

"Uh huh uh huh uh huh—" Kíli mumbled before tumbling flat on his face.

"Hark! Me thinks me see-eth a light forth with ahead!" Balin cried, pointing off into the distance.

And indeed, there was a light! In a grove of trees some two hundred, three hundred yards away to the north, there was a burning orange light, a fire, as it were.

"What do we do about it?" Dori asked, sipping a cup of chamomile he'd produced from out of nowhere.

"We..." Ulfric hesitated. "Oh!"

"Wha?" Dwalin asked, standing as far away from Thorin as possible and wiping his gunk covered face off with a strange plant (someone should tell him it's poison oak).

"We should send someone to see if there's anything worth plundering and pillaging and—"

"Yes, we get it," Bofur said loudly, nodding.

"But who?" Nori asked.

Everyone looked at Kíli.

"What? Why me?"

"Not you! Him!" Óin yelled.

Everyone looked at Odahviing.

"Surely you jest!"

"Not you! Him!" Glóin yelled.

Everyone looked at the tree above Odahviing's head.

"Drat and befuddle it all!" exclaimed one Mister Todd Reachfield of the city of Riften in the Rift (not to be confused with the Reach on the other side of the Falkreath Hold).

"Who are you?" Fíli asked.

"I—"

"This is Todd Reachfield. He thinks he is the Dragonborn when the Dragonborn is actually Kunokaaz," Odahviing explained, bored. "Reachfield is one of the senior members in the Circle of the Companions and Kunokaaz is a Mistress of the School of Destruction at the College of Winterhold. They do not get along."

"Hey, Big Guy, it's not my fault we had to destroy that summoned thingy one of her apprentices summoned in—"

"Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh!" Odahviing shushed him.

Todd was dumbstruck.

"Is he gonna go or what?" Dwalin asked.

Todd shifted in clear discomfort. "I don't normally do the sneaking side of an adventure."

"Then wadda'll we do?" Ori cried.

Everyone stood penchant for a moment before looking at Thorin, who was still covered in his own leftover dinner and appeared to be quite out of it, mentally speaking.

·•*°*•·

_Todd belongs to my brother. _

_Kunokaaz Peyttuz is Dovahzul, taken from Thu'um dot org, literally meaning "Light [of the] Sea" / "Rose-blade". So, you know .The more you know. _


	3. School House Troll

_Happy Friday, everybody! Here's Chapter Three. In this installment, one of my favorite characters shows up and makes everything that much more hilarious in the long run. _

_So originally, chapters one through five were all together in what was supposed to be a really long one shot. Obviously it grew. I'm still writing this story and the end is...__**so...far...away...**__ But anyway, that's why the description and style changes later on, as I moved away from the brevity of a (long) one shot parody and turned this into more of a fully fleshed out story. This whole project has grown with me over the last five years as I've developed in my writing and I think you can see that as the story progresses._

_Bring on the trolls...er, the fictional trolls!_

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Three — School House Troll**_

Five minutes later and two hundred yards, two feet, two inches, and a fourth of another inch away, three trolls sat eating dinner.

"I say, Sir Robert, this is a truly magnificent stew!"

"Why thank you, Sir Thomas! And this is quite the lovely cast iron pot in which to cook it in!"

"We mustn't forget our dear Sir William, who has invited us to his cave for this delightful party!"

"Oui! C'est bon, mon cher troll!" the greatly immense Sir William cried in the still-nonexistent French language, bowing to Sir Robert and to Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas reached back to straighten his coat tails (made of only the finest fig leaves) only to be met with something very warm, hard, and tiny, kinda like a burnt bagel. "I say, whatever is this?" he inquired aloud, grabbing the warm, hard, and tiny thing and pulling it around to the front.

Fíli, in all his golden haired, lightly armored, and general blondness, gave him a Flynn Rider style smolder.

"Hi, how're y'all doin'?"

The three Gentle-Trolls looked aghast at each other.

"His grammar!"

"Tis preposterous!"

"Truly absurd!"

Fíli stared at them.

The three Gentle-Trolls stared back.

"FOR SPARTA!"

"THIS ISN'T SPARTA YOU FOOLISH DWARF!"

"SHUT UP BLONDIE!"

The obviously insane but still majestic Thorin Oakenshield and the true and potentially still sane High King of Skyrim Ulfric Stormcloak ran into the clearing waving their swords and arguing even as they charged the trolls. Behind them, Balin, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Ori, Glóin, Óin, and Kíli ran in after them, hollering and screaming about food, pastries, never ending hunger, and nutritious sustenance.

The three Gentle-Trolls stared as the twelve dwarves and one man started whacking their legs with their puny weapons.

"I say!"

"They're quite bothersome."

"Indeed."

Thorin puffed up his chest, took a deep breath, and in a deep and commanding voice, he spoke,

"Put that blond Casanova down right now!"

Ulfric, Dwalin, and Balin took the time to face palm. Well, Ulfric and Balin face palmed, Dwalin just started scratching his face where an angry red rash had started to form.

"Why ever should we listen to a group of uneducated ruffians and marauders such as yourselves?" Sir Thomas asked.

"Because I am the king!" Thorin and Ulfric said in unison.

They looked at each other.

"What? I'm the king! No! You aren't king! How dare you insinuate that I am not a king! I am a majestic king! I am a king fighting for my throne! What? You can't fight for your throne too! That's against the rules in the King's Handbook!" Back and forth Ulfric and Thorin went, arguing over their individual kingliness and such and so forth.

As they did this, the three Gentle-Trolls, ever in favor of higher education and civilized manners, took each of the dwarves (and Ulfric) and strapped them to uncomfortable desks with chains from which they would attempt to give each and every one of them an education worthy of Harvard,, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, and other highly rated universities that don't exist in Arda or Nirn.

And when the party of fourteen realized they were trapped, it was too late for them to escape!

"We should not bother with roll calls and such, for the dawn isn't far in coming," Sir William advised.

"I surely do not fancy becoming a stone statue!" Sir Robert exclaimed, fearful.

"Of course you do not!" Sir Thomas shook his head. "They should — how do they say it? Ah, yes, they shall 'cram' tonight and tomorrow evening we shall give them an exam!"

"That would be — oh sweet gumdrop Nellie Sue!"

Sir Robert and Sir Thomas hastened to Sir William's side and together they pulled a rather short creature with curly brownish blond hair, a red coat, a green waistcoat with brass buttons, and no shoes on off of their friend's back

"I say!"

"What is it?"

"I do believe it would be informative to ask him!"

The three Gentle-Trolls nodded in joint agreement before looking once more at the creature.

"What, pray tell, are you, my good sir?"

"I'm a cosplayer."

"A what?"

"I'm Dr. John Watson." The Watsobbit looked rather bored.

"A doctor?"

"Wherever did you get your degree?"

"Do you mean a medical doctor or a science doctor?"

"Uh..." John Watson looked uncomfortable from where he dangled from the beefy fingers of Sir Thomas.

Suddenly, Todd Reachfield burst into the clearing.

"I have a degree on lycanthropy from Jorrvaskr!"

The dwarves all looked at each other.

The Gentle-Trolls all looked at each other.

Ulfric and Dr. Watson looked at each other.

"I have a degree on the Way of the Voice from High Hrothgar!" proclaimed Ulfric.

"I have a masters from Bree on toy making!" said Bofur.

"I have a doctorate in larceny from an inn in Dunland!" was Nori's addition.

"I have you all beat! I have a PhD in archery from the Golden Wood!"

Upon hearing this statement, Thorin kicked Kíli in the head. How he managed this while being chained to a desk, the Narrator isn't quite sure.

"I possess a bachelorette in Westron that some creepy lady in some shadowy inn gave me!"

"It's not called a bachelorette, Mr. Balin," Ori corrected.

"Ori!" exclaimed Dori. "Behave!"

Here after, the dwarves started spouting off different subjects they had degrees in. Including but not limited to: a masters on cooking from a rude Hobbit lady (this was Bombur), a doctorate in building from the Golden Hall of Edoras in Rohan (Glóin), an actual bachelors degree from Minas Tirith on hair dye (this one belonging to Dwalin), and a PhD on braiding hair from the Woodland Realm.

Thorin kicked Fíli as soon as he said that. Still not sure how.

Everyone stared at each other, again.

"They're rather fanciful, aren't they?"

"Quite."

"Indeed."

"DAWN IS BREAKING! GREAT THE NEW DAY!"

Everyone jumped as none other than Leara Rose-blade and Gandalf the Grey appeared, standing upon a giant boulder.

Or half a boulder, seeing as Gandalf had just broken it in half.

And they were both licking rather large ice cream cones.

But that's not the point.

The point is, the two had returned and proceeded to break a boulder which caused the early rays of dawn to pour over the three trolls.

"Why, who are they?" Sir Robert asked before turning to stone.

"I haven't an inkling," Sir Thomas shook his head in reply before turning into stone himself.

"Could we educate them too?" Sir William inquired before, at last, he turned to stone as well.

·•*°*•·

_It occurred to me that I should probably translate the French._

_"__Oui! C'est bon, mon cher troll!" — "Yes! It's good, my dear troll!"_

_That's roughly a third of what I know in French, so there you go. I hope y'all like John. I love Martin Freeman and if I was to write out Bilbo (why did I do that?), I had to have someone. Thus...the Watsobbit._


	4. Troll Horde 221b

_School's out of seasion for the Company now that the trolls have been delt with. Leara and Gandalf return and they get a new traveling buddy...plus other antics. _

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Four — Troll Horde 221b**_

Everyone stared at the stone Gentle-Trolls and then at Gandalf and Leara and then their ice cream.

"Did you bring us some?" Bofur asked.

"Nope," Leara shot over her shoulder as she unlocked the chains holding Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Balin, and Dwalin with one hand. "Your face is really weird looking," she told the itchy bald dwarf.

"Urgh..."

The Altmer and the Istar went around and freed the dwarves and Ulfric, and then Leara noticed Todd.

"Reachfield!"

"Rose-blade!"

The two growled before approaching each other, both tensed like a piece of barbwire.

"What are you doing here?" Leara Rose-blade demanded, getting in the Nord's face.

"If you must know, there is a rather large bounty on a mountain dwelling dragon, not including the untold riches he guards in those ancient mountain halls," Todd Reachfield snapped, flinging spit on Leara's face.

"That's my kill! As Dragonborn!" the she-elf cried, indignant. She stomped her foot for emphasis.

"Just because you can use the Voice and absorb the souls of dragons, doesn't mean you are the Dragonborn!"

"I'm pretty sure it does, you—"

Before Leara Rose-blade could finish her sentence by calling Todd Reachfield several rude names, Odahviing marched into the clearing and — and ate him.

The great red dragon had eaten the annoying werewolf.

The horned Dovah had eaten the string bean-like Nord.

The dragon who allied himself with the Dragonborn had eaten the leader of the puppy squad from Skyrim.

Leara blinked.

Odahviing coughed.

"He tastes like chicken," he coughed again.

"You think everything tastes like chicken," Leara Rose-blade reminded him, rolling her eyes.

Odahviing shook his massive horned cranium. "No, the chicken doesn't taste like chicken."

Balin walked over to them. "Then how do you know what chicken tastes like?"

"Because I am Od Ah Viing!"

Balin nodded, deeming this to be a satisfactory answer.

Meanwhile, some five and a half and three quarter yards away, give or take a foot or so, Gandalf was watching several different verities of wild fowl and birds alight atop the stone trolls, leaving quite the, uh, mess. Thorin approached him, looking quite out of sorts with dried puke all over the front of his clothes, sticks tangled in his majestic mane of luxurious, ebony colored locks, and goop from the Elmer's glue that had been on his desk all in his short little beard. Not half as epic as Gimli's beard, but seeing as he's not here and is, after all, only a kid at the moment by dwarven standards, we can't do a proper comparison on beards.

Moving on.

"These trolls couldn't have moved in daylight," Gandalf mused, munching on his ice cream cone.

"How do you get this goop out of hair?" Thorin asked, ignoring the now messy troll statues he was standing next to.

"There must be a cave nearby..."

"Good!" the disheveled oaken shield wielding fellow exclaimed. "Maybe they have hair products in there to take care of the abnormal, abysmal, abhorrently atrocious stuff in my majestic, miraculously marvelous mane of hair!"

Gandalf stared at him, dumbfounded, and a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream fell from his cone to the ground. "Where ever did you learn such big, complicated words, Thorin Oakenshield?"

Thorin stared at him. "Wha?"

"Never mind," Gandalf shook his head. He then turned around...and spotted John Watson.

John Watson who was still dressed like Bilbo Baggins's identical twin brother, to be exact.

"My dear Mr. Baggins! It seems you have finally decided to join us!" Gandalf exclaimed, looking rather pleased and, dare the Narrator narrate it, smug.

Dr. Watson looked up at Gandalf, startled. "Oh, no, you have me mistaken for someone else, I'm—"

"You know, you're a little taller than I remember you being last evening," Gandalf mused, staring at the fidgety Watsobbit. He snapped his fingers and a small pink fire work went off a couple feet above the grey wizard's head. "I know! You did something with your hair!"

Dr. Watson gave him a bored (or blank or confused, he gets those mixed up) look. He then sighed. "Okay then, you people think I'm some three foot tall elf/dwarf hybrid called a Hobbit or halfling and, not only that, you think I'm the one who is supposed to steal things for you from a dragon who sounds like my flatmate."

Gandalf nodded affirmative.

Grumbling, Dr. Watson crossed his arms. "Fine! I'll help you! If I get a Chinese cat statue in return."

Gandalf nodded again. "Thorin, are there any Chinese cat statues in Erebor?"

The head dwarf shook his head, "No idea."

Dr. Watson shrugged, "Close enough."

Once they were all assembled together, everyone (minus Odahviing) trudged around for fifteen minutes searching for the troll cave/horde/place/thing.

And that was when they found it.

Within the heart of a cluster of boulders, dark and stinky, was the cave.

"You know, I hadn't expected it to be this disgusting," Ulfric mused, appearing thoughtful as he studied the entrance where flies were buzzing and little green fungi grew. It was totally gross.

"Trolls need a healthy amount of flies and fungi to thrive or else they'll shrivel up like dried out mushrooms," Leara Rose-blade explained, standing next to her blond sidekick.

Gandalf went up to the entrance and took a rather large whiff. He then proceeded to turn a rather unflattering shade of green as smoke shot out of his nostrils, ears, and mouth.

"Does...an...y...one...have...a...can...of...Feb...reze©?" he wheezed, coughing between each syllable.

Everyone started rummaging around in their pockets before Bifur pulled out a can of lavender scented air freshener.

"Thanks," Gandalf coughed, taking the can of Febreze© and spraying it like a madman into the cave.

Fifteen and a half minutes later...

"There! The can's empty and everything smells like flowers!"

"It's GIRL SCENTED!" Thorin screamed, forgetting, for the moment, about his ruined hair.

"Well I'm a girl so the scent should love me!" Leara Rose-blade grinned, striding into the now lavender scented cave. Ulfric hastened to follow and Fíli and Kíli, one blond and one ever ready to please the golden Altmer, bounced after them.

The remaining thirteen (eleven dwarves, a wizard, and a Watsobbit) stared after them before, after standing around looking stupid for a few minutes, running in after them.

Inside, Ulfric had found a Mûmikal tusk, Fíli and Kíli had found candy floss (the Narrator would advise not eating food from a troll cave, but they don't listen to the Narrator), and Leara Rose-blade had discovered—

"Swords! Of Gondola! From Italy! Wow!" she cried, holding up a sword with only one stick thingy on the spot between the handle and the blade.

Gandalf walked up to her and looked at the one with two stick thingies instead of one.

Cross-guard. They're called cross-guards.

"These were forged in Gondolin by the high elves of the First Age!"

"My kin?" Leara asked.

Gandalf shrugged.

Thorin walked over (having someone managed to clean his hair in the time when he was not in this scene; the Narrator supposes that the trolls did have shampoo hiding in their cave...somewhere) and Leara handed him the sword with one stick thingy.

"These swords were not made by any troll," he said, looking over the shiny silver sword.

"Dude!"

"We just established this!"

Thorin shrugged, not really caring. "Who made these bad mama jamas then?"

"These were forged by the high elves of the West, my kin," Leara Rose-blade explained. In all actuality, Leara's elven heritage came from her grandmother and she was of stout Altmer decent. No one knows if the Aldmeri of Aldmeris have any connection with the Noldor, Vanyar, or Teleri, but that's not why we're here today.

"You keep creeping me out with your continuous, spontaneous spouts of elven jibber jabber!" Thorin whined, voice void of majesty.

"Quit being such a drama queen!" Leara Rose-blade whined back.

Gandalf then whacked Thorin on the head with his staff...

"Ow-y!"

...and gave Leara a Hershey's© chocolate bar with almonds.

"Thank you!"

·•*′*•·

_Poor Thorin always gets the short end of the stick whenever Leara is involved. At least he didn't get eaten like Todd did. But is this the last we see of the puppy squad of Skyrim?_

**_Mr. Owl from the Tootsie Pop Commercial: Let's find out! A-chapter f—_**

_Beat it, birdie! ...as I was saying, the world may never know._


	5. The Consequences of Dragon Social Media

_This is a day late (not that I think anyone cares or not — does anyone care? Welp, that's me being depressing) because I was shopping and let time get away from me. Oops._

_So! Fun fact: originally, the "Dragon Social Media" in this chapter was a text group (talk about being from 2014...), but when I recently edited it, I changed it to a more public platform. Enjoy. _

·•*°*•·

**_Chapter Five — The Consequences of Dragon Social Media_**

Meanwhile...!

Dr. Watson picked up a plastic blue letter opener.

"What the h*ll is this?!" he exclaimed.

Ulfric popped up and instantaneously back handed the cursing Watsobbit with the Mûmikal tusk.

"This is supposed to be rated a light PG with jokes that people over fifteen will kinda get and little kids won't understand!" Ulfric reprimanded.

"The video game you're from is rated 17+, this movie is PG-13, and my show isn't exactly Teletubbies," John reminded the blond Jarl.

"What's a 'video game'?" Ulfric asked, confused.

"It's complicated," the Watsobbit sighed.

"To answer your question, this is an elvish letter opener formerly belonging to Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower with which he used to open his fan mail!"

"Ah!"

Ulfric and Dr. Watson turned to see a strange short fellow with long messy hair (and matching beard) with birdie dodo in it dressed in a sweater vest and tweed pants. A battered Panama hat sat precariously on his head, birdie dodo sticking to the underside of the rim. In his hands he carried a woodland-ish-y staff that coincidentally doubled as an umbrella from the 1980s. Though, no one was sure if it was from Arnor in the 1980s of the Third Age, Lindon in the 1980s of the Second Age, or if it was from that odd decade in the First Era called 'the 1980s strawberry tart movement' in Tamriel.

Not to mention that Panama — just like France — doesn't exist in Arda or Nirn.

Much less a Panama hat!

"Radagast! Radagast VII 'the Brown'!" Gandalf exclaimed, coming forward out of the back of the cave with Leara Rose-blade and Thorin Oakenshield following. Thorin looked like he'd been hit by a rhino giving birth to a warg strangling a Uruk-Hai eating Alduin's foot. Leara, however, looked happy, with chocolate smeared on her faintly golden skin and an almond bit on her breastplate.

Gandalf, of course, had the sword with two stick thingies within easy reach on his belt. Thorin had the sword with only one stick thingy (and, subsequently, less hand-and-wrist protection) on his back. Where, if he drew it, it had the potential possibility to cut of his head or some of his hair.

Or his 'I am King' bead, signed by Elvis Presley.

Who knows what could happen if that was taken from his majestic head...

"I came to warn you, Gandalf."

"Warn me?"

"Yes, warn you."

"Warn me about what?"

"I came to warn you about a necromancer!"

"You came to warn me about a necromancer?"

"Yes, I came to warn you about a necromancer who may be Sauron but sounds kinda like Smaug on laughing gas."

"You came to warn me about a necromancer who may be Sauron but sounds kinda like Smaug on laughing gas?"

"Yes, I came to warn you about a necromancer who maybe Sauron but sounds kinda like Smaug on laughing gas who lives in Eryn Galen which everyone insists on calling Mirkwood and may be bringing back the Nazgûl because I found this sword kinda like the one that stabbed Lady Celebrían of Imladris."

"You came to warn me about a—"

"Yes!" Radagast interrupted him. "Now shut up, Gandalf!"

"Who's Sauron?" Fíli asked, twirling a blond strand of hair in his mustache between his fingers.

Everyone face palmed.

"Even I know who Sauron is!" Ulfric grumbled.

Leara yawned at Ulfric and he yawned back. She then scratched her pointy ear and he pretended to scratch a pointy ear on his head that wasn't there. She then whipped her magnificent Princess Ariel-like-long hair around. Ulfric tried — and failed — to do this.

"Loser," she snorted.

As they did this, Odahviing ambled into the clearing. "I think these wolf things ridden by mutated monkeys are chasing us."

"WHAT?!" everyone yelled. That would be eighteen-ish-y people, so it was rather (extremely) loud.

Just know that in the Golden Hall of Edoras, Fengel could hear them. In the White Tower of Ecthelion of Minas Tirith, Ecthelion heard them. In the White Gold Tower, Titus Mede II heard them. In Whiterun, Balgruuf the Greater heard them. In — let's just say everyone heard them.

Including the wargs and orcs who were currently hunting them.

"So," Gandalf began, putting on sunglasses from circa 1950s. Again, no one knows exactly which 1950s we're talking about. "One of you mortal fools spilled the semantics on our venture and—"

"Hold on," Leara Rose-blade said, raising a hand. She took out an Android© smartphone (which DEFINITELY doesn't exist but at this point, who cares?) and pulled up her latest notification.

[You were mentioned in a post by SoulSlayerDragon13]

Leara Rose-blade's brow creased as she gazed down at the picture of Durnehviir chilling out while Balin, Dori, and Ori screamed, Nori stole Balin's cupcake (it was a nauseous shade of pink), and Dwalin clutched an orange teddy bear as they fell from the sky. She tapped the likes number, only to cringe when she saw that all of her own co-workers, plus nearly every dragon in Skyrim, had already liked the post. Scrolling a little more, she opened the caption, which read:

'A Quest to Reclaim a Homeland: Free Falling to the Trollshaws.'

"Durnehviir may have taken a picture and posted it on Instagram ©," Leara told the rest of the group.

Everyone looked at Odahviing.

Odahviing looked back.

"Hey, he's 'Curse Never Dying', I'm 'Snow Wing Hunter'. There's a vast difference."

Everyone nodded as this made sense.

"What do we do?" Thorin asked, freaking out over everything like a teenage girl.

Leara grabbed his hand.

Thorin looked at the elf.

Leara looked at the dwarf.

"Run!"

The rest watched as the two scrambled off together out of the clearing around the troll cave.

"The other way," Gandalf directed, seeing as the two were running back toward the Shire.

Leara and Thorin scrambled back through, this time heading for the rocky plains and the Misty Mountains 'cold'.

"They're gonna get killed!" wailed Kíli, already pining away for his hero, the Dragonborn.

"Not if I cause — A DIVERSION!" Radagast cried, pointing his umbrella staff into the air.

"Those are Gundabad wargs! They'll outrun you!" Gandalf reminded his friend, growing quite worried.

"These are Rosie-go-bell bunnies," Radagast told him, pointing to a group of a dozen rabbits harnessed to a sled. "I'd like to see them try!"

Gandalf looked back to the rabbits, now numbering twenty three. He nodded in agreement. "Good luck, mi amigo," he said, clasping the other wizard's hand briefly.

Radagast touched the tip of his Panama hat in farewell before going to his bunny slay, now being pulled by forty five bunnies.

"Get along lil' bunnies!" the strangely clad wizard ordered before being pulled off by eighty nine rabbits.

John gaped at the retreating sled. "That, that is bull—"

Ulfric hit Dr. Watson with the Mûmikal tusk, again. "Child friendly production!"

The Watsobbit grumbled.

"Now what do we do?" Dwalin asked.

"We run," Odahviing and Gandalf said in unison.

However, Odahviing did not run, he took to the skies, flying higher and higher until he was just a red blimp in the sky.

The twelve dwarves, the wizard, the Jarl, and the Watsobbit ran like crazy and eventually caught up with the harried Dragonborn and screaming Thorin Oakenshield, who was becoming less and less majestic by the minute.

"We need to head for the Hidden Valley!" Gandalf yelled at the group at large.

"How do we find it if it's hidden?" Leara Rose-blade asked.

"Well..."

"GANDALF!"

"Hold on!"

In the distance, Radagast could be seen skidding around with some three hundred fifty three-ish rabbits being chased by giant mutated puppy dogs being ridden by grotesque creatures.

"Those are...orcs?" Leara and Ulfric cried, wide eyed.

"Yes!" Bofur yelled back.

"I don't think Great Aunt Mazoga would approve," Leara told Ulfric, who nodded.

"Your great aunt is an ORC?!" Thorin squawked.

"Well, she and my grandma were friends."

Thorin started crying.

"Uncle Thorin! Shut up!" Fíli exclaimed, stuffing a sweaty gym sock into his uncle's mouth as the group huddled together under a rock to hide.

"Why are we hiding?" Ori asked.

"Ori!" exclaimed Dori. "Behave!"

Unfortunately, Dori's exclamation, though (not really) good natured, alerted the orcs and wargs to the groups' presence.

Well, they would've found them anyway.

"BLEH! BLOO! BLEE! BLAH!" the orcs screamed, charging towards them like jousters on ponies.

But orcs are not jousters and wargs are not ponies (bright pink or otherwise) and thus, this was gonna get real messy.

"This way, you blundering idiots!"

Everyone looked around to find that John Watson was standing in front of a steep hole in the ground.

"Oh, you've found the Hidden Pass!" Gandalf giggled giddily, providing us with an unneeded alliteration and a weird mental image of him giggling like a girl.

"Run!" Leara and Thorin screamed, still clutching at each other's hands.

"Are they dating or something?" Bofur inquired.

"I don't think her aunt would be too pleased," Ulfric shook his head and glared at...everyone.

"RUN!"

"BLEH!"

"GET OUTTA THE WAY!"

"BLOO!"

"DEAR AKATOSH'S SAGGY Y-FRONTS!"

"BLEE!"

"MOTHER!"

"BLAH!"

"WHERE IS MY GUN?"

"BLEH!"

"WHAT THE OBLIVION IS A 'GUN'?"

"BLOO!"

"KATE UPTON IS HAWT!"

"BLEE!"

"KÍLI! SHUT YER TRAP!"

"BLAH!"

And everyone fell head over heals, up and over and down into the Hidden Pass.

"Ow," everyone said in unison.

"That went swimmingly," cheered Fíli, earning another well aimed kick from Thorin.

·•*°*•·

_I would like to thank those who have favorited this story and who've put this on Follow alerts for doing so. I'd also like to encourage anyone reading to please, leave a review, even if it is just a thumbs up or something. Thanks for reading. _


	6. Interlude in Imladris

_My greatest (one of my greatest) weakness is my love alliteration. That's why this chapter title sucks so bad. Oh well. Just one more hurdle through the gates of Imladris and then chaos. _

_Literally. _

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Six — Interlude in Imladris**_

After a moment, everyone got up and looked around. They ignored the sounds of fire and girlish screaming and epic yelling and Odahviing's Thu'um attacking the orcs and wargs as they started walking down the passage. After what felt like forever and after everyone had been elbowed to the point of bruising by everyone else's elbows and a few knees, they found themselves stepping out on a rocky hill overlooking a valley of ethereal beauty, waterfalls, and the kind of delicate structures you'd expect to find in a book of fairy tales.

"It's so...pretty!" Leara sighed, gazing out over the valley.

"Bloody elves," Ulfric spat, evidently not as taken with the place as his officer.

"No! I thought I said no side trips to elven havens!" Thorin whined, stomping his foot with notably less majesticalness then normal.

"Thorin Oakenshield! Lord Elrond is, by far, the wisest and most authoritative elf lord in Middle-earth!" exclaimed Gandalf, who had by now had it up to the tip of his pointy nose with the dwarf king's childishness.

"Who put him in charge?" Thorin sniffed.

"High King Gil-galad!" said Dr. Watson.

"How'd'ya know that?" Leara Rose-blade asked.

"I, uh, I read it in a book somewhere," the Watsobbit shrugged.

At this, the Dragonborn squealed. "Oh! I've read many things in books! According to one, my uncle once impersonated the Daedric Prince of Knowledge to cause another ancestor of mine to go mad!"

"How...lovely," John Watson coughed, pulling at his jacket collar.

Obviously, we now know from which side of the family or, more accurately, from which family member Leara Rose-blade got her, hmm, lovely personality.

"Your weird blabbing does not tell me why we need this all powerful Elrond fellow!" Thorin cried, stomping his feet like a five year old.

Leara petted his head in sympathy.

"We need him to read the map!" Gandalf told him, his exasperation mounting.

"Map? What map?" Ulfric asked, stepping closer to where Leara Rose-blade, Gandalf, and Thorin stood huddled together.

"Well, not this one for sure," Leara told him, pulling out a weathered map of Skyrim. Several places were marked besides the cities — Windstad Manor, High Hrothgar, and the College of Winterhold among others — and a few scribbled notes in mixed Cyrodilic and Altmeris. Such as 'get larger fireplace in Hall of Countenance chamber', 'have Valdimar get a goat', 'barrow Uncle Sheo's strawberry tart recipe', and...weirder things.

"How long have you been using that?" Nori asked, staring at the worn paper.

Leara screwed up her face in thought before shrugging. "Some three even years or so. I've had it ever since I grabbed it from a shelf in the Helgen Keep when I was escaping a dragon attack when they were gonna try and kill me for trying to get to work from Cyrodiil," she explained.

"Cyrodiil?" Balin asked.

"My grandfather's homeland," Leara Rose-blade clarified, smiling as if lost in a fond memory.

Gandalf then cleared his throat, the mushy reminiscing making his manly wizardness feel threatened. "We must hurry to the House of Elrond."

"We're not in danger though, right? We can have a bit of a rest, can't we?" Dr. Watson asked.

"They have food and girls—"

Almost instantly, the dwarves, Ulfric, and John Watson started running for the bridge to the elven city of Rivendell.

Thorin, Gandalf, and Leara Rose-blade stared after them.

"They're awful fast, aren't they?" Leara scratched her head in contemplation as she stared after the fourteen fellows.

"Yep," Thorin gave a vigorous nod in agreement.

The Istar, the Altmer, and the (debatably) majestic dwarf king began to trudge down the hill and over the bridge, all the way to Elrond's house.

Soon, the seventeen members of Leara Rose-blade and Co., formerly called Thorin Oakenshield and Co., stood in front of a long stone staircase guarded on either side by two tall stone elven warriors.

"Oh yes, much cooler then Alinor or Firsthold," Leara nodded in approval.

"Hiiiiii Gandalf!"

The grey wizard jumped ten feet into the air before toppling back down in a heap of robes.

"Lindir! Don't do that!" Gandalf scolded. Lindir shrugged, beaming with a childlike innocence. "Where's Lord Elrond?"

"He's hunting."

"Hunting what?"

"Mutated monkey."

"Why?"

"Apparently King Thranduil's moose—"

"Elk."

"—elk is allergic."

"Ah," Gandalf nodded in understanding. "I see. When do you suppose he'll be back?"

Lindir shrugged again.

"Look, I was told there was food and girls at this shindig, where are they?" Dwalin demanded through still swollen lips, earning a disgusted look from everyone except Balin and Kíli. Balin because he was his brother and a general nice person and Kili because he was giggling and laughing at him instead.

"Uh, the Lady Undómiel is visiting her grandpa in the Golden Wood," Lindir said, quirking an eyebrow at the group, "and all the other elf maids are at a party in Mirkwood."

"Dang," Balin, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Ori, Fíli, Kíli, Óin, Glóin, Ulfric, and John Watson said together. It was drawn out and sad.

"No fraternizing with elves!" Thorin yelled at them in reproof.

"Ah, Thorin Oakenshield. We thought that you'd be coming," Lindir sighed.

"Did you hear his complaining all the way from the Shire?" Leara Rose-blade asked, walking up to stand near Lindir.

The minstrel stared at the tall she-elf with reddish brown hair and faintly golden skin.

He blinked.

Leara blinked.

"Well?" the Dragonborn demanded.

"I..." Lindir gulped.

"He's twitterpated," Ori whispered to Dori.

"Ori!" exclaimed Dori. "Behave!"

Ignoring the youngest and oldest of the Ri brothers, Lindir cleared his throat in an attempt to answer the romantically oblivious Leara Rose-blade. "I...no, we uh, we saw your party exiting the pass."

"Brilliant!" Leara grinned and Lindir's cheeks tinged scarlet.

Suddenly, a loud chopping, windy noise filled the air and everyone looked up to see a bright sky blue helicopter pass by overhead to make its descent. On the side in big and squiggly gold letters was written, 'The Star Dome Copter'.

"Ah, here is Lord Elrond now," Lindir clapped his hands, looking away from the squirming high elf.

"Who's flying that?" the Watsobbit asked, frowning as he tried to get a better look at the helicopter.

"That would be Lord Glorfindel."

Everyone watched as the helicopter landed on a hitherto unnoticed helicopter parking pad and two elves got out. One was blond with a blue jumpsuit and golden boots, gloves and belt, all of which made him look like the Vault Boy from Fallout. This was, obviously, Lord Glorfindel, to whom the blue plastic letter opener now in the possession of Dr. Watson once belonged. The second was a dark haired elf with kaki colored pants and shirt. Kinda like a game hunter in Africa, though instead of a gun he had a sword. Between them they carried a cage with an incapacitated monkey thing inside.

"Ah, Lindir, excellent! Take the monkey and put it at Thranduil's favorite entrance way. That should keep him out for a while," Lord Elrond told the minstrel, who nodded. He took the cage and hurried off, sparing Leara Rose-blade one last look. Glorfindel rushed back to shut down his helicopter as Elrond turned to speak to Gandalf. "Ah! Mellon nîn!"

"Did he just say watermelon ninny?" Ulfric asked.

"No idea," Leara shrugged.

·•*°*•·

_Ah, I love Lindir. He's adorable. I could huggle him all the time. I also love Elrond. This story makes me happy because the only other time I've written about him was in this massive fanfic I wrote when I was like, fourteen. I'd graduated from Legomance to whatever you call Thorin/OC romance and my OC, Valaina, had been Elrond's daughter. It was weird. It was bad .Thank God I never published. I did try to rewrite it, but never got very far._

_I say that to say...I love Imladris elves. More from them in future._


	7. Recaps at Rivendell

_Now in Rivendell, the Company finds itself in for a wild time. Plus Elrond worries, but what else is new?_

_I actually finished chapter fifty five this morning, and...wow. This whole story is just one giant case of nutty adventures. And fourth wall breaking. Don't forget that. That's impoetant. _

_Please review. :)_

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Seven — Recaps at Rivendell**_

Ignoring the rude whispering of Leara and Ulfric, Gandalf and Elrond continued speaking.

"Why are you trying to keep Thranduil out?" Gandalf asked, curious.

Elrond grimaced. "He keeps stealing from Arwen's vanity."

Gandalf nodded in complete understanding. "Indeed, I see how that can be destressing for her."

"The thing is, he keeps getting pink glitter everywhere."

"Oh dear."

"Wait, pink glitter? I love pink glitter!" Leara beamed, butting her way into their conversation.

Elrond stared at her.

"Averin?"

"Ah, no, that's my grandmother."

"Married that mortal king, did she?"

"Emperor, actually, yeah, er...sorta."

Elrond nodded, "She was always a bad influence on Arwen."

Leara shrugged, "My aunt would probably agree."

"Is that the one who sent Paarthurnax that sweater?" Ulfric asked.

"Yep."

Thorin scowled at the two elves, the wizard, and the tall blond person he didn't like. He turned around and began whispering to Dwalin, who nodded and whispered to Nori, who whispered to Kíli, who whispered to Ori, who whispered to Bifur, who gestured at Bofur, who whispered to Óin, who spoke 'quietly' to Dori, who whispered to Glóin, who whispered to Bombur, who whispered to Balin, who whispered to Fíli.

Thorin looked at the short blond person he didn't like (though not as much as he didn't like Storm-dress-what's-his-face) and Fíli stared back.

They stared at each other for a moment before Thorin nodded and Fíli nodded in return. The young blond dwarf then turned to where Lord Elrond and Leara Rose-blade were talking about an amulet, a temple, and a fancy sword.

He then proceeded to take a deep, deep, oxygen enriched breath.

"Uncle Thorin requests that you all quit being nancy cats and just be cute and cuddly, boys, CUTE AND CUDDLY!"

Thorin Oakenshield shook his head from embarrassment, his original dwarvish insult having been completely distorted amongst the Company and outright lost to Fíli the Not as Cool as His Uncle.

Everyone stared at Fíli, then Thorin, then Fíli, then Thorin, then Fíli, then Thorin...

And Fíli again.

And Thorin once more.

And—

"But," protested Ori and Leara Rose-blade in sync. "I am cute and cuddly!"

Dori and Ulfric face palmed in retaliation.

"I'm just a hedgehog," Dr. Watson sighed in dejection.

"I am a majestical idiot of an Alaskan sled dog!" added Kíli, attempting to be as valiant as he thought Leara Rose-blade to be, but really he just came off as a hipster bandwagon movement.

Everyone's gaze shifted to the youngest of the line of Durin.

"So," Elrond said, straightening his African game hunter like jacket. "Would anyone like BBQ pork?"

"BBQ PORK?!"

Moving faster than they had when Gandalf first mentioned girls and food, all the dwarves, plus Ulfric, rushed away up toward the grand House of Imladris, leaving Lord Elrond, Gandalf, Leara Rose-blade, and the Watsobbit standing there to bite at their dust.

"Thank the Divines Galmar isn't here," Leara said to the silence.

Just then, Glorfindel came back from his precious helicopter (preeeccciiiooouuusss...), he opened his mouth to speak, and then...stopped. He stood there like a giant statue of a human fish, drawing the gazes of most of the remaining people on the platform.

"Is he okay?" Dr. Watson asked in an aside to Lord Elrond.

The half elven studied his friend and then at the object of his viewage.

Leara Rose-blade.

Who happened to be looking miserable at her abandonment via Jarl of Eastmarch.

Gandalf was quick to catch on to this as well. The three males not taken with the manic beauty of Leara watched as Glorfindel continued to practice his improv fish face on the Dragonborn. Meanwhile, said Dragonborn hunched her shoulders and dragged her feet toward the stone stairs that her friend had rushed up previously.

Glorfindel's eyes followed the Altmer as she ascended the steps. Once she disappeared at the top, he shook his head before looking around, dazed. The golden elf's gaze fell on the unimpressed Elrond and he smiled as if none have that had even happened.

"Do we still have that barbeque pork?"

Elrond scowled, he liked it when people said 'BBQ' instead of 'barbeque', but he nodded in the affirmative anyway. "Yes, though if I were you, I would hurry. Gandalf's party just went to the dining hall."

Glorfindel bobbed his head before skipping up the stairs after Leara and the boys.

"Are all the single elf guys going to stare at Leara like that?" Dr. Watson asked.

Elrond and Gandalf both paled and looked at each other.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I believe so."

"Then you must make sure neither Prince Legolas nor King Thranduil nor any Woodland elf meets Lady Leara, because I fear if they do, they will become obsessive and transfixed," Elrond told Gandalf. The wizard brought out his pipe and puffed at it in worry.

Fifteen minutes later...!

Everyone was miserable.

Except Leara, but that should go without saying.

Currently, as the population of Rivendell apparently consisted of only one female and many, many, many single elf dudes, who were single because all the married ones (except Lord Elrond) had followed their wives, who had gone to some party in Smirkwood with all the single ladies, Leara was the center of their attention.

Our beloved heroine, ever romantically oblivious, was nonetheless happy to be treated as her ancestors, the emperors and empresses of the Septim Empire, had. She also really loved apples. Everyone else though, was, as said beforehand, miserable.

Of course, they had their BBQ pork, but they weren't waited on hand and foot with constant dedication and given desserts and had music played for them.

In essence, if the Narrator had to put it into perspective, they were common, though generally kinda liked peasants in the light of Her Royal Madness, Empress Leara Septim.

"So how was your trip so far?" Elrond asked Gandalf, ignoring the awestruck elf dudes and the moody dwarves.

"Well, we met up in the Hobbit hole of Mr. Bilbo Baggins in the Shire. We had just concluded our dinner when Miss Rose-blade arrived. Unfortunately, this seemed to set Mr. Baggins off and he kicked us all out. We were then joined Miss Rose-blade's friend, Ulfric Stormcloak, who informed us of Miss Rose-blade's rather interesting history as a dragon slayer of legend. Presently, we realized that we had no horses or ponies and Miss Rose-blade used her Thu'um — her power over the dragon tongue — to summon three dragons who she allies herself with. They all have quite impressive names, all sounding much mightier than Smaug's. Paarthurnax, Durnehviir, and Odahviing, I believe they are all called. They carried us upon their backs all the way to the Trollshaws. However, at that point, two of the dragons left us rather abruptly. Apparently there was a timer on a batch of a confectionary called a Sweetroll, so we were left with the red dragon Odahviing. As it turns out, Odahviing is the elder brother of Smaug!"

"Who'da thunk it?" Elrond said in surprise.

"Yes! Anyway, Miss Rose-blade and I left the group to scout ahead after the dragon Odahviing attempted to eat Thorin Oakenshield for being a pest. She explained to me that her dragon blood allows her to wield the Thu'um as she does. The dragon blood is something her family has had for many generations, though the actual ability to use the Voice, as mortals call it, has been dormant since her ancestor, Tiber Septim, who first became emperor of her homeland. After that conversation, and getting ice cream from a vendor near the last bridge, we returned to discover our companions had been force educated by Gentle-Trolls from the Ettenmoors. Luck was on our side, however, and we were able to break a boulder and cast the trolls into sunlight, subsequently turning them to stone. Afterwards, I discovered that Mr. Baggins had indeed followed us!" Gandalf gestured to where the Watsobbit sat on the other side of Lord Elrond, the expression on his face showing anything but amusement.

Elrond looked at the Watsobbit, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Dr. John Watson was most certainly not a Hobbit, but there was little Elrond knew he could do to persuade Gandalf otherwise. Only the Lady Galadriel could, and she most likely wouldn't because she would find it endearing and amusing.

"Once we freed the dwarves and Miss Rose-blade's friend, Mr. Stormcloak, we found the troll horde where we found swords of Gondolin!" Gandalf went on in excitement.

Leara started, almost upsetting her apple juice and apple pie with ice cream. Lucky for her, Erestor managed to straighten them out.

"Elves of Gondolin? They are my kin," Elrond nodded as Gandalf showed him the sword with two stick thingies. "This is Glamdring, the Foe Hammer."

"Thorin's only has one stick thing," Leara snickered.

The Narrator would again like to reiterate that the stick thingies are called cross-guards.

Elrond raised an eyebrow and looked at the sword on Thorin Oakenshield's back. He nodded again. "That is Orcrist, the Cheese Cleaver."

"Are you my cousin?" Leara Rose-blade asked Elrond, after swallowing a bite of pie fed to her by Glorfindel.

"No," was the half elven's short answer.

The last thing he wanted was to be related to an oblivious, golden skinned female semi Boromir (though he, like everyone else, does not know who Boromir is as he has of yet to be born) and to share her elf dude attracting genes.

That'd get awkward.

Quickly.

Elrond decided then that he needed to call Celebrían in Valinor after lunch to tell her he feared why all the young elf dudes kept throwing themselves at Arwen's feet.

·•*°*•·

_I said he was going to worry. And yay! Glorfindel! Besides Elrond, Glorfindel is honestly my favorite LotR character. He's like the Chuck Norris of Middle-earth, except he doesn't really do anything Chuck Norris-y here. Yet. Maybe. Anyway._

_Stay tuned for next week when a certain elf lady makes her debut and Ulfric gets jealous of...pineapple?_


	8. The Friendship Triangle

_So this is like, super late, and to my invisible, silent readers, I apologise. Thursday I woke up at 5am and marathoned both _Hobbit _and _Lord of the Rings_ trilogies. It took 21 hours ish and by the time I got to the Battle of Pelennor Fields, I was making wisecracks about Legolas and thought Théoden looked weirdly like Fíli. It was...it was weird. _

_Anyway, back to Rivendell. _

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Eight — The Friendship Triangle**_

Leara Rose-blade watched as Lord Elrond pulled out his iPhone 4© (weirdo, her Motorola Droid Mini© was so much cooler) and left to call his wife, muttering about some sort of freaky gene their daughter may have as he went. Leara didn't quite get what he was talking about. But then again, she wasn't raised to be a DNA expert, she was raised to be Dov-ah-kiin!

"Would you like more apple sauce, milady?" a nameless elf dude asked. Leara regarded him over the top of her glass. To tell the truth, she wasn't sure why all these elvish guys wanted to wait on her hand and foot. She may be a Septim, but due to a ridiculous takeover by the Medes, some Thalmor, a snobby countess insulting her grandmother, and the general dislike for high elves because they were 'Thalmor monsters', her family hadn't seen the throne since before the Oblivion Crisis. Steering her mental ship away from political governmental crap, Leara shook her head at the nameless elf dude.

"Nah, I'm full," she said. She set aside her cup of apple juice before standing up and stretching. "I'm going to go..." she looked around and spotted a temperamental Thorin stabbing his BBQ pork sandwich with Dr. Watson's envelope opener. "Yeah, Imma gonna go talk to Oaky now. See you guys later."

She also may have been denied the throne because some psychiatrist diagnosed her with madness, but no one told her that. No need for two incarnations of Pelagius the III, right? Right.

Leara Rose-blade was oblivious to the jealous looks the elf dudes shot at Thorin Oakenshield as she traipsed over and sat next to him.

Thorin scowled at her.

"And how are you today, Thorny Oaky pants?" she asked in the most sticky and sweet voice ever heard in Arda or Nirn in whatever weird way they were connected.

"What do you want?" he grumbled, cutting his sandwich into bits.

"The elves are getting on my nerves," Leara whispered, taking care to be extra quiet. As an elf herself, she was well aware of super elfy hearing.

Thorin gave her a funny look.

"You're getting annoyed with yourself?" He gave her another weird look. From one weirdo to another, he thought she'd lost it.

The Dragonborn ignored the dwarf king. Instead, she reclined against the table before giving Thorin a dreadfully frightful, mischievous grin.

"Oh dear." Thorin had a bad feeling about that grin.

"What if—" Leara Rose-blade leaned so close to Thorin Oakenshield that he could feel a brush of her strange cheesy apple breath on his ears. Admittedly, it tickled him. But being a highly majestic and kingly dwarf hero, he refrained from giggling. "What if..."

Meanwhile...!

"Where are we going?"

Elrond sighed as Gandalf and Dr. Watson followed him through Imladris.

"We have to go speak to her."

"Who's 'her'?" John Watson asked.

"She's—"

KA-BAMMY-BOOM-WHAMO!

"WHAT THE H*LL WAS THAT?!" the Watsobbit swore.

Ulfric Stormcloak suddenly popped up out of nowhere and whacked Dr. Watson on the back of the head with the Mûmikal tusk. Again.

"CHILD FRIENDLY PRESENTATION!" he yelled with a righteous fury.

Lord Elrond and Gandalf the Grey just stared.

"Must you do that?" Dr. Watson moaned, rubbing his now achy breaky head.

"Must you swear?" Ulfric retaliated.

"Burn!" the half elf and Istar exclaimed before doing a fist bump.

John Watson then proceeded to give the two the 'Watson Glower'. Yes, the one he usually gives Sherlock when he's royally ticked off. But as the high functioning sociopath of 221b wasn't there, the Watsobbit had to make do.

Or you could call it the Look of the Angry Hedgehog, but the Narrator digresses.

"What caused that explosion?" Gandalf inquired suddenly recalling the instigating event that caused Dr. Watson to swear in the first place.

Everyone looked at him as they, too, remembered the loud—

KA-BAMMY-BOOM-WHAMO!

—that had sounded out throughout all of Rivendell.

"Let's kill the virus then," Elrond said, pulling out a pair of dark sunglasses, much cooler than Gandalf's, and fixing them on his face in one set motion.

He, Ulfric, and Gandalf walked away, off in the direction that the explosion had come from. John Watson gaped at where Elrond had been, his jaw threatening to hit the floor.

"That...that's not..." He blinked, realizing that they had left him. With a frantic wave of his arms, he began running after the three. "Wait for me!" he squealed.

When they arrived, what they found wasn't entirely what they expected.

To understand what they saw, we must rewind.

Previously...!

"What if...?" Leara Rose-blade grinned. "What if...I took this!"

The Altmer snatched the Elvis Presley signed 'I am King' bead from Thorin's hair and ran off with it, followed by a trail of her own maniacal giggling.

"Hey! No, no, that's not fair!" Thorin cried, getting up and running after her. The elf dudes, misinterpreting Thorin and Leara's actions, immediately took off after the two like a bunch of outdated Directioners or Beliebers after a tweet.

Aren't they lucky those weirdos don't exist in Arda and Nirn, in whatever weird way they're connected?

So the elf dudes, led by a screaming Glorfindel, chased Thorin Oakenshield, who was also screaming, who was chasing Leara Rose-blade, who was laughing like a madwoman.

She eventually came skidding to a halt in front of a blonde chic and an old Count Dooku/Dumbledore wannabe.

"Take this!" Leara cried, thrusting Thorin's bead into the blonde chic's hand.

"ROSE-BLADE!"

"Hide me!" she screeched, jumping into the wannabe's traveling cloak.

"What—"

"ROSE-BLADE!" Thorin yelled, charging around the corner and into the corridor. He looked around upon realizing that his special priceless bead was in the hands of some fancy elven chic. "You!"

"Oh no, wait—"

Thorin tackled the blonde elf chic (two things he hated: blonde and elf) and they started tussling. Thorin for the bead and the elf lady to get away from him.

Leara poked her head out from under the old guy's cloak and watched the fight, curious, and entirely oblivious to her own exposure.

"There she is!"

She looked up, startled to see Glorfindel and his passé almost upon them.

"No!" she screamed in horror. Leara tried to get out from under the wannabe's cloak but alas! They took a little tumble...

So there they were, all wrestling and yelling and screeching like brainless banshees. Leara managed to crawl out of the rabble and pulled herself up to the wall.

"Thank goodness my Blades' armor protected me! Bloody Tolfdir thinking I should wear robes all the bloody time!" she snorted before clearing her throat.

Even over all the fighting and yelling, Thorin Oakenshield heard that one sound, the windpipe cleary kind of sound that he knew from experience heralded doom and destruction for all.

"NOT AGAIN—"

"JOOR DREM OV!"

Leara watched in confusion as only Thorin tumbled over out of the wriggling mass of bodies as the rest just kept going at each other.

"What'd I do wrong?" a sad Leara Rose-blade asked the ruffled up Thorin.

"What'd you say?" Thorin asked, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt rather sick.

Leara frowned in confusion. "I said 'mortal peace trust', why?"

"They're immortal people, dumbo!"

"Oh." Thorin heard the sound of the Dragonborn clearing her throat once again. "NI JOOR DREM OV!"

Instantly, the elves fell away from each other.

Leara Rose-blade grinned as Thorin stood up and stared at the Altmer's handiwork.

"Gandalf isn't going to like this," the dwarf moaned.

"Well, we'll have to remedy that, Master Oaken Pants!" Leara grinned at the ill tempered king before turning to the staggering elves. "All right lads! Listen, it's Gandalf's birthday."

"It isn't Gandalf's birth—"

"Put a sock in it, Blondie," Leara snapped at the blonde elf chic, who frowned.

Blondie looked at the wannabe, who just shook his head in fear of the Altmer.

"As I was saying! It's Gandalf's birthday and we should throw him a genuine Hawaiian luau!" She punctuated this last statement with a clap of her hands and a stray spark flying from her messed up hair.

The Narrator would like to insert her frustration at the continued references to nonexistent places such as France, Italy, Panama, Hawaii, etc, within Nirn and Arda, in whatever weird way they are connected.

But she will continue to point out their nonexistence anyway.

"How is it genuine when we aren't in Hawaii?" Erestor asked.

Leara Rose-blade face palmed, sighed, and then proceeded to give Erestor a grumpy (cat) look.

"Make it genuine!" she hissed, as if this were the obvious solution.

Everyone blinked at her.

Roughly Five Minutes Later...!

"I never knew pineapple was that tasty!" Thorin exclaimed, his special bead woven back into his hair, as he ate a piece of the afore mentioned fruit.

"Yeah, I eat it all the time at home. If there was a tenth Divine, pineapple would be it!" Leara Rose-blade grinned, popping a piece of the yellow tropical fruit into her mouth.

In the background, Saruman-the-wannabe grumbled as he continued to conjure up typically traditional Hawaiian cuisine for the luau. Galadriel-the-blonde-chic, in turn, only pouted from where she stood with a hula skirt and coconut bra over her rumpled white dress. Her arms were crossed, giving the impression that she wasn't happy with this situation at all.

Meanwhile, the mindless elf dudes who were enthralled with Leara Rose-blade, including Glorfindel and Erestor and Lindir, continued to decorate the garden to look like a traditional Hawaiian Luau.

And this, my little watermelons, is the bizarre scene into which Elrond, Gandalf, John Watson, and Ulfric walked.

"What are you people doing?!" Elrond screamed, grabbing at his hair. His sunglasses went askew and an eyebrow began to twitch far more than an eyebrow should ever twitch.

"Oh, Elrond! Gandalf! Thank Eru you two are here!" Galadriel cried, running up to them.

Gandalf peered down at her leafy skirt. "Doth Celeborn knoweth you weareth his salad?"

"Shut up!" the Lady of Lórien snapped, smacking the wizard on the back of the head.

Ulfric looked around the garden and raised an eyebrow. "Leara? Why are you doing a remake of Ralof's birthday party?"

"SHUT UP BLONDIE!" Leara and Thorin shouted in sync before highfiving and eating more pineapple.

"What have you DONE?!" Elrond screamed, louder this time. If the Narrator didn't know any better, she'd say he was going to have am emotional breakdown.

"Oh," Leara and Thorin looked at each other. "Um..."

"Can I stop conjuring pineapple now?" Saruman whined.

Gandalf stared at him.

Saruman stared back.

"Dude, you've been pwned," the Grey One nodded.

"Don't you mean 'owned'?" the White One asked tiredly.

"Nope!" Gandalf grinned.

Leara rubbed the back of her head, unintentionally making her hair go from stressed school teacher to Elsa the Ice Queen. "Um...it's Gandalf's birthday..."

"It's not my birthday," Gandalf shook his head.

The Watsobbit suddenly blinked in recognition. "It's MY birthday!"

Leara Rose-blade blinked at him before bobbing her head. "Yeah, I meant Dr. Watson, not Gandalf, Dr. Watson!"

"No you didn't," Thorin reminded her.

"Shutity upity up!"

Ulfric, brave leader, Jarl, soldier that he was, suddenly felt extremely worried and threatened. Leara Rose-blade was HIS friend, despite her elvish-ness and odd nature and love of exploding things with balls of ice, and this, this dwarven king, this...Thorin Oakenshield was pushing him out! Truthfully, Ulfric had never heard of friendship triangles, though he remembered something that sounded vaguely like that in one of Leara's books, a love triapod or whatever they were called. But, the point was, they were in a friendship triangle and the son of the Bear of Eastmarch did not like it, not one itty bitty bit!

Gandalf, ignoring the weird twitching of the blond Nord and the Lord of Rivendell, looked around. Leara and Thorin were being uncommonly decent to each other. Besides the two 'group leaders', many of the elven men of Elrond's House were playing with the luau decorations, Galadriel was grumbling about, tugging at the skirt of leaves she had on, Saruman was sneaking pieces of pineapple in what he seemed to think was a discreet manner, and 'Bilbo Baggins' was gazing in awe at the entire set up.

It was evident that something was about to go down.

·•*°*•·

_What's going to go down in Elrond's garden? Something that he'll still complain about later, I assure you. _

_Tune in __next week__ Friday when Something Goes Down and I reference _Once Upon A Time.


	9. Serpentine! Serpentine!

**Looks innocently to the ceiling. **

_I like to hold myself to a certain standard of integrity. I say I'll update on Fridays and even if it seems like no one but me cares, I expect myself to update on Fridays! I'm disappointed in myself. I think, then, I should move the day to Thursday. I always think of it on Thursdays. _

_Anyway, here's Chapter Nine. After this, things pick up differently. See the end notes for details. _

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Nine — Serpentine! Serpentine!**_

Behind the contemplative form of Gandalf, Elrond continued twitching. He itched, twitched, wiggled, shook...

...and then...

...something went down.

"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE!"

Somehow, the entire Company, sans Gandalf, found themselves running and screaming and screeching for the second time that day. Lord Elrond was on their heels, running and screaming and screeching like them as he pursued the Company.

"HOW DARE YOU DESECRATE MY GARDEN!"

"I DIDN'T HURT YOUR GARDEN!"

"COME BACK HERE, YOU MONGREL ELF!"

"OI!"

Before Leara could turn around and give the Lord of Imladris, who was even more insane than her, a piece of her mind, both Ulfric and Thorin grabbed her by an arm each and pulled her after them.

"What...did... you...guys...do?!" Bofur cried, clutching to the wild flapping sides of his beloved hat.

While Thorin and Leara had been acting like children and Gandalf and John and Ulfric had been following Elrond, the rest of the dwarves had been eating pastries and giving themselves pedicures in the abandoned Imladris Salon. Though, they wouldn't tell Thorin or Leara that. But their feet were still quite tender, and in fact, Kíli was still blowing at the no chip sparkly pink nail polish on his toes as he ran.

So, Ulfric and Thorin were both in the lead with Leara being dragged between them. Because of this, she had an excellent view of everyone else, especially their feet, and their odd jumping on their heels had her rather confused but definitely amused. Unfortunately for her funny bone, there was no time for it, as Lord Elrond was ready to kill them, or very slightly maim.

"Head for the Pass of Caradhras!" the Watsobbit screeched.

"That's too far south!"

"Let us go through the Mines of Moria," Glóin yelled. "My cousin Balin will give us a warm welcome!"

"I'm right here, you dipstick!"

"Make for the Gap of Rohan!" Thorin ordered.

"That exposes us to the Eye of Sauron!" warned Leara.

So, the ragtag motley gang ran in an indecisive line from Rivendell, passed the mutated monkey, which was still passed out in his cage, and down the trail in the woods out into Eriador.

Suddenly, quite unexpectedly actually, a huge shadow swept over the group.

And Leara screamed even louder and sharper in pitch than ever before.

From out of nowhere, a great serpentine dragon swept down from the heavens, grabbed Leara Rose-blade in his claws, and flew up and away toward the Misty Mountains with her in his clutches.

Down on the ground, Thorin Oakenshield and Ulfric Stormcloak stumbled from the force of her being wrenched from their grasp. They stared aghast and wide eyed as the Dragonborn was carried away, screaching her head off in the guttural language of the Dov. Farther and farther away the dragon flew until all they could see were the Misty Mountains with no trace of him or their aerial Altmer.

"Mahal's Forge! We go on a quest to slay one dragon and we've encountered four!" Dwalin exclaimed.

"She's gone," Ulfric said, stunned.

"Who would do such a thing?" Thorin questioned.

"I—"

"DESECRATORS!"

The sound of Lord Elrond's enraged shout cut Ulfric off and set the remaining fifteen to running again.

As they ran, the great red form of Odahviing swept through the air high above them, heading for the mountains. His path was clear; theirs, however, was not.

Bombur, in fear of Lord Elrond, ran so far ahead of the rest of the Company that he couldn't slow down and ended up smacking his face into a tree.

By the time they caught up with him, he was dancing around in dizzy little circles, yellow canaries flying around his head, with a bit of drool dripping down his chin.

And that was just the beginning!

As Kíli played 'For Blood, For Glory, For Honor' from his iPod, which was connected to some kind of iWorld speaker thing, they ran as majestically (or non majestically) as they could over plains and rivers and forests toward the great chain of mountains that ran like the blade of Leara's favorite dagger through the heart of Middle-earth.

By that evening, they had reached the foot of the Misty Mountains.

"Shouldn't we wait here for Gandalf?" John Watson asked, panting from overexertion.

"No, we must rescue the Dragonborn!" was Kíli's adamant reply.

"Still quite taken with her, I see," a voice said.

"Ahh!"

Everyone screamed as none other then Radagast VII 'the Brown' popped up in their midst.

"Radagast!" Thorin and Ulfric cried in unison.

"Yes, it is I!" he exclaimed, giving them an exaggerated bow.

"What are you doing here?" Fíli asked.

"I have come to help!"

"You have come to help?"

"I have come to help you cross the mountains!"

"You have come to help us cross the mountains?"

"I have come to help you cross the mountains and avoid the stone giants, which would cause a great deal of grief for all of you!"

"You have come to help us cross the mountains and avoid the stone giants, which would cause a great deal of grief for all of us?"

"I have come to help you cross the mountains and avoid the stone giants, which would cause a great deal of grief for all of you, and to help you descend safely into Rhovanion."

"You have come to help—"

"Stop mimicking each other!" Thorin hollered, cutting Fili off.

"Geez, man, chill!" Óin scoffed.

Thorin ignored him.

"Anyway," Radagast continued as if Thorin had never spoken, "I have this bean."

"A bean?" Bofur quirked a dark eyebrow.

"Yes, simply throw it on the ground and wish to be in Rhovanion!" Radagast said with a lopsided grin and a shrug.

"Isn't that a bit hazardous?" Dr. Watson asked, frowning.

Radagast only shrugged.

Ulfric stared at the bean with a raised eyebrow. "Isn't there a fairy tale with magic beans?"

"Um...I believe so, yes. Why?" Ori asked.

"Just...curious."

The Watsobbit snapped his fingers. "I saw this on the telly once! That thing with...um, Robert Carlyle and Jennifer Morrison in it!"

Radagast stomped his foot.

"Are you going to take the unsafe magical bean or not?" he whined.

Everyone shrugged a collective, nonverbal 'sure' and Radagast handed the bean to Thorin.

Thorin stared at it.

"Um..."

"Well, that's that! Tata, I'll see you on the other side, gents!" Radagast waved goodbye before hopping on his bunny slay, now pulled by some odd six thousand bunnies.

"Wow," Nori and Bomber whispered as the legions of bunnies hopped off.

"So...what do we do with it?" Ori asked.

"Ori!" exclaimed Dori. "Behave!"

"We do...this!" Ulfric snatched the bean from Thorin's open, limp hand, and threw it to the ground beneath them.

A swirling green portal opened up beneath the entire company and, with screams of panic and whoops of excitement, they all fell inside of it.

They seemed to float through the vibrant green funnel for a few minutes before one end opened up and spat them out...

...on a cave floor.

"Stormcloak! What is the meaning of this?" Thorin yelled from underneath Fíli, Kíli, Glóin, Dwalin, and Bifur.

"I think we're in a cave," Kíli observed.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Dr. Watson grumbled.

·•*°*•·

_Ah, the days when _Once Upon A Time_ was still cool. _

**_*Warning: Writer's sob story on the history of this fic ahead!*_**

_I began writing _An Unexpected Dragonborn _in June of 2015. Originally it was mostly for the enjoyment of my baby sister, which is why a lot of the first nine chapters and parts of the rest of the story may seem childish. They still make her burst out laughing and that's what makes me keep writing this, that's why I know this story and everything it's gone through is worth it. _

_And boy has it gone through a lot ._

_I started this when I was — sixteen? — on my phone, of all things. Around chapter twelve, my phone crashed and I lost everything but the first nine chapters, which I'd backuped to my email. For several months I didn't write anymore because I was discouraged. I then tried to continue on the computer, but it didn't have the same spontaneous flow as before. It felt forced. Eventually I started it again on my new phone, just whenever I had a moment or a spark of inspiration. You can see that as the story progresses through the different fandom themes that occur. _

_While that has made the story organic and original, allowing it to grow its own way, it's also suffered from that. 99% of this fic is pantsed. Pantsed is a writing term meaning you've basically written your story with little to no outline — by the seat of your pants. That means there may be plot holes and characters may be inconsistent. I try to catch them all, but things slip by me. Like a few typos in the first eight chapters I need to go fix. _

**_Tl;dr — writer's sob story on the history of this fic. _**

_This Thursday: We find out just what cave they ended up in and Dr. Watson learns how to use the letter opener. _

_Your feedback means a lot to me, but even if you don't review or even favorite, thank you for reading._


	10. The Case of Dr Watson and Mr Gollum

_Happy Thursday to my silent (so, so silent...) readers! _

_This would be a good time to mention that this story is also crossposted over on ao3. I'm A_Modwinter_Night_Dream86 over there. It's just that version is a few chapters behind because I so seldom use ao3, I forget I have it. Oops?_

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Ten — The Strange Case of Dr. Watson and Mr. Gollum**_

Ulfric looked around the inside of the cave and frowned.

Leara was not in the current vicinity.

As the dwarves moaned and groaned and grumbled on the ground around him, the Jarl of Eastmarch sat, dumbfounded.

The bean was supposed to take him to his best friend! Not to some Talos forsaken cave in the middle of Talos knows where in the heart of some stupid mountains which obviously held no shrines to Talos in the middle of some weird land that did not worship Talos!

...upon reflection, maybe he should stop going to the tavern with Leara's cousin. For an Altmer, that dude swore by Talos a lot.

"Where in Durin's name are we?" Thorin, Dwalin, Fíli, and Glóin all exclaimed.

"Um..." Ulfric trailed off.

"We're in a cave," Kíli said, again, as he stood up. He checked out the ruins of his manicured feet with a perturbed pout.

"No sh—"

"Don't you dare!" Ulfric threatened Dr. Watson, who looked dumbstruck, flabbergasted, and all around gobsmacked.

Twelve of the dwarves stared at Ulfric in wide eyed wonder dash horror. Thorin, however, stood up.

"We're in a cave."

"We've established this, Uncle..." Fíli began, before being cut off.

"A CAVE!"

And just like that, Thorin hugged the cave wall.

And started vibrating.

"Are you all right?" Balin asked as Thorin continued to shake on the wall.

"My face is going numb!" he squealed.

Balin sighed before stepping forward to pull Thorin off of the wall. He placed his hand on the stone — and immediately began vibrating as well.

"Now my arm is numb!" he exclaimed.

Kíli and Fíli exchanged matching grins before they too plastered themselves on to the wall next to their uncle and distant cousin.

"Oh! This is epic!"

"Wonder why it does this?" Fíli mused.

"Maybe It's an earthquake or a volcano or—"

And then the ground split open and they fell on to a literal rock slide.

"AHH!"

"SWEET TALOS!"

"AHH!"

"MAHAL'S FORGE!"

"AHH!"

As they screamed, Kíli put Aly & AJ's 'Like Whoa' on, which caused more screaming.

"Like a rollercoaster ride, holdin' on white knuckles like—"

"SHUT IT OFF!"

"NO!"

"Everytime I'm like up and down and side to side, every inch of me is like—"

"TURN THAT IPOD OFF!"

"OI! LEARA GAVE THIS TO ME!"

"YOU STOLE HER IPOD!?"

Ulfric made a grab across the slide for the pale red iPod but Kíli rolled away—

—and on to a twiggy wooden platform.

Moments later, the other fourteen fell on top of him and the iPod slipped out of his hands and into the shadowy crag below.

"Oof!" he huffed.

"Ohsa! Looksa!"

Suddenly they were swarmed and jostled and tugged upon by icky filthy little goblins!

With much yelling and screaming and cursing (courtesy of the Watsobbit) and threats (courtesy of Thorin and Ulfric) they were bound and dragged away deeper into the dark tunnels.

Except, for Dr. Watson.

On shaking legs, John got to his feet and looked around. He took a step forward and something pointy pricked at the bottom of his foot. Curious, he bent over and picked the object up.

And found Lord Glorfindel's old blue letter opener. Something about it seemed off, the once clear blue plastic seemed fogged...

"Whatsa issa thissa!?"

The Watsobbit sprang up to see a goblin jumping toward him.

Well, not so much as jumping, as it was catapulting.

Personally, the Narrator wonders if the goblin thought it was Superman.

John held the letter opener out in front of him like a sword, a spear, a pointy projectile — and the goblin collided with it. It stared at the letter opener sticking out of its tummy and proceeded to let fall great big crocodile tears.

And now we know Super Goblin's kryptonite.

Moving on.

Unfortunately for our dearest and only Watsobbit, the force of the impact of the collision of the goblin with his body caused him to lose his balance. They faltered and fumbled there together on the edge of the abyss for a tense moment, but with the advent of the goblin's tears, they lost whatever chance either of them had of making it away.

And then they tumbled after Leara Rose-blade's iPod into the deep dark crag.

As they ping ponged down, Dr. Watson was oddly reminded of that time Sherlock jumped off the hospital and faked his death.

If he died, Mary was not gonna be pleased.

So, with very clever precision, the Watsobbit did an areal maneuver and the dying goblin (it turned out that the wound he'd delt it with his letter opener might have proved fatal...oops) ended up underneath him, kinda like a sled or a toboggan.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on who you ask) the ride down to the bottom was rather fun. Dr. Watson made a mental note to take Mary and Sherlock skiing that winter when he got home. Maybe—

And then, he hit the bottom, with only a goblin carcass as a cushion.

Moaning, the Watsobbit rolled over and over and over until he landed in a comfortable little hidey hole behind a few imposing rocks.

Minutes ticked by and he felt as if he could fall asleep when he heard a distant hiss and a faraway splash.

He bolted up in an instant.

From his hiding place behind the oh so convenient pile of rocks, John Watson peered into the shadows.

Something moved.

He held his breath as, from the darkness, a strange skinny thing emerged.

It was by far the weirdest thing Dr. John Hamish Watson had ever seen.

It was...a Gollum.

John watched with bated breath as the creature called Gollum proceeded to skin, clean, cut, and fry the goblin. Kinda like fried chicken, except without the chicken and with extra grease. As he watched this, Dr. Watson noticed that the fog had vanished from the clear blue plastic of the letter opener.

This was because it was an elvish letter opener and the letter openers made in Gondolin fogged up whenever orcs or goblins were near. However, the Watsobbit was unaware of that fact.

"Breaks us and curse us, precious, we's forgot the saltses!" Gollum cried in horror, and John watched as he disappeared back into the murky dark from which he'd come.

Expecting the odd Gollum creature to be gone for a few minutes at least, our dear Watsobbit stood up and gazed around at Gollum's handiwork. The goblin was prepared like a bucket of fried chicken at KFC's, the unwanted bits were cast off into a hole, a shiny ring was on the ground, Leara Rose-blade's iPod was there...

John pocketed the iPod.

And then paused.

He turned and looked down at the ring in wonder.

And it seemed to get closer and closer and closer—

And then he realized that he'd been bending down toward it.

"Hmm," John hummed under his breath. And with that, he snatched up the ring and pocketed it.

And then he heard a splash.

Drip.

Drop.

Drip.

Drop.

John was getting rather bored listening to the 'drip, drop, drip, drop' of the water, which was obviously dripping from the—

"Bless us and splash us, Precious! What is it?"

Uh, yes, the Gollum creature was back.

The Watsobbit smoothed the front of his Bilbo Baggins' costume, turned, and gave Gollum a shallow nod.

"My name is John Watson, and I'm a doctor from London."

"Watsonses?" Gollum peered up at him in both curiosity and confusion. "What is a Watsonses?"

The Watsobbit blinked. "I am a Watson and Watson means...me!"

Then Gollum did something that the Watsobbit was not expecting, at all, at all.

He sniffed him.

"Coleslaw!"

John stared at him. "Excuse me?"

Gollum started clapping his hands together and bouncing with a rather creepy and nauseating amount of excitement. "We've had fried stuffs, taters, and hushed pupseses! But we've never had coleslaw before!" He began to creep forward, a creepy serial killer horror movie kind of grin on his face.

Dr. Watson was having none of that!

"No! You cannot eat me!" he screeched girlishly.

Gollum gave him an obvious look that said 'like, seriously dude'. "Why?"

Without hesitation, Dr. Watson cleared his throat and spoke. "Because...because, because, because...I," he rolled his head, looking for any quick escape routs. There weren't any. Although... "Because I am also a detective."

Sherlock was going to kill him.

Gollum gave him a funny look. "De-tact-of?"

John nodded. "Yeah, yes. I investigate things, annoy things, solve things—"

"Solveses? Likes a riddle game!" Gollum cheered, all of a sudden invading Dr. Watson's personal bubble.

We're still not sure how he was smart enough to make that loose connection, but oh well!

The Watsobbit cleared his throat and stepped back from the excited creature. "Yeah, like a riddle game."

Gollum grinned, "What has roots as nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up it goes, and yet never grows?"

"Um...the mountain?"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes..." Gollum's face changed. "No! No, no, no riddles."

"Um..." John was confused.

You see, Gollum has a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing going on, but without the 'Doctor' part. Though, John could probably give him a few doctor type pointers and stuff.

"Yes...let's play a game of riddles..." the creepy Gollum whispered. "If Watsonses loses, we turn him into coleslaw."

Smoothing his jacket and straightening up, Dr. Watson nodded. "Yes, and if the Gollumses—"

"Gollum, Gollum!"

"—Gollum loses, he has to show the Watson—"

"Watsonses."

"—Watsonses the way out of this dank dark pit!"

Gollum bobbed his head in vigorous affirmation. Then there was silence. "Well, Watsonses first."

Feeling numb, the Watsobbit swollowed, then, clearing his throat, he belted out a riddle from some book he had read years before. "Thirty white horses on a red hill, first they champ, then they stamp, then they stand still."

He sat down and waited as Gollum fumbled around and twitched his nose and blinked his eyes and clamped his jaws and smacked his teeth...

His teeth!

"Teeth...?" Dr. Watson gave him a slight nod and Gollum started clapping again in excitement. "Teeth! Yes, but we only has nine." And he showed John his nine semi rotten teeth.

"Yes...very nice," the Watsobbit assured him with a cringe.

Gollum did not notice this aversion, however, as he was quick to fire another riddle at John, this one being somewhat (a lot) creepy. "Voiceless it cries, wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters."

This stumped the good Watsobbit most furiously.

Until he felt a strange breeze puff on the back of his head, Like the Narrator breathing obviously on him.

"Wind, of course." The fact that he had gotten it right seemed to feel Gollum with a tremendous amount of annoyance. He fell backward with a dramatic moan.

John knew the Gollum thing WANTED him to lose, and he, in turn, wanted Gollum to lose. Since there was an obvious conflict of interests there, he was quite sure things were gonna get nasty sooner or later (probably sooner). Suddenly he regretted leaving his gun at home, not for the last time!

"Well, let's see, shall we...?"

·•*°*•·

_Originally, this chapter was so different. I had the whole riddle game and everything. The Narrator (aka, Me) even put a filter on the increasingly mouthy Watson. Well that got lost. So we have this! And personally, when we join back up with Dr. Watson and Mr. Gollum, I think it's better than what I originally had. Ah, the magic of rewrites. _

_Join us next week when we rejoin Leara, wherever she is, for an evening of stimulating cave art and conversation with, well, a certain person from Skyrim ._


	11. The Cavern Beyond the Goblin City

_Hi, so _Endgame _happened. _

_Holy craaap..._

_I'm not going to say anything, cos spoilers, but it was, it was a cinematic masterpiece and they got a lot done. Totally crazy. Somethings didn't quite make sense. But that's any movie, right? As a superhero movie, it really is lit, and if you love Marvel, I recommend it. Just don't drink anything before hand. _

_On another note, Taylor Swift's new single is out and it's giving me feelings. I'm just going to curl up on a pillow. Meanwhile, take this long expected chapter. _

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Eleven — The Cavern Beyond the Goblin City**_

Sans one Watsobbit, the Company plus Ulfric were herded through the goblin tunnels by the crazy little creatures. As they went, the goblins sang about cracks and snaps and battering and beating and all manner of horrible, terrible things.

"Are they on crack?" Kíli whispered to Fíli.

"No idea," the blond shrugged.

"They keep talking about it."

"So?"

"I was curious."

"Both of you shut up!" hissed Thorin and Ulfric at the same time. The two then glared at each other. With them both trying to vye for Leara Rose-blade's attention in secret and being jealous of one another, they really didn't want to be thinking and saying the same things.

"Silence-sa!" cried several of the goblins, and the muttering, mumbling, moaning Company shut up.

However, Leara, on the other hand, was not to be silenced.

When the giant serpentine dragon had elfnapped her, she'd hung there in serene silence, taking pictures of the scenery for her scrapbook, texting her cousin, playing Angry Dovah© and Flappy Dovah©, and listening to random tunes on Azura! Radio©. Even when the large dragon had swooped into an even larger cave and deposited her in a corner before flying off again, the Dragonborn continued to be calm, cool, and collected. She studied the cave walls, drew little stick figures representing the Company, played with some stalagmites and stalactites, and was in general very well behaved.

Then, Miraak came in.

Well, more like he crept up on Leara Rose-blade while she was drawing her house in the dirt.

"Vood evening," he said, stepping on her picture and startling the half-elf senseless.

"Sweet Celestia!" she shrieked, darting to her feet so that she and her newly rediscovered nemesis were on equal terms. "What the Tartarus are you doing here?!"

"I vame to vake vu to Vastle Viraak in Apocryph-vania," he said, making his voice sound even darker and creepier than normal.

Actually, it sounded more cheesy than creepy, but the Narrator wishes to digress. Anyway.

Leara took the time to look over her newly alive enemy.

Or undead.

Miraak had ditched the creepy tentacle mask and dragon priest type mage robes. His very scruffy and messy mahogany hair was gelled back in a bad stereotypical vampire hairdo. He was also sporting ultra red eyes instead of his normal light blue.

"Are you wearing contacts?" Leara asked, crossing her arms and appraising him with clear disapproval.

"Er, yes."

Sighing, Leara poked the chest of his Count Costume. "Why are you Dracula?"

"Voo?"

"Never mind. Why am I here?"

"Vecause!" Miraak exclaimed, straightening up importantly and brandishing his vampire *ahem*magician*ahem* cape (non)majestically. "I vant to suck vor vlood!"

"That's cute," Leara Rose-blade said before walking off.

Miraak stared in incredulity as his nemesis began poking around the back of the cave. Curious, he walked (stalked?) over to join her.

"Vhat are vu doing?" he asked. Leara didn't need to look at him to see the spittle coming off his plastic vampire fangs. If he talked anymore, his spit would coat the walls.

"Looking for the way out, you nerf herder," the Altmer replied, walking along the back wall.

"Vu know ve vay out ith—" Miraak turned his head and spat the fangs out in frustration. "You know the way out is at the cave mouth, not in the back."

Leara only shrugged, "Sometimes the way to get back to the beginning is to go to the end."

Miraak huffed before grabbing her by her gauntlet clad wrist and dragging her back to where he had entered, Leara protesting all the while. "How did you even get here?" she demanded, all appearances of being calm gone.

"Just because Herma Mora destroyed my body, doesn't mean my soul was gone," Miraak explained, becoming at once serious. "Oblivion is more suited for the dead than the living, and I had indeed died."

Leara nodded.

"Fully under the will and power of Mora, I was trapped within Mora's own palace, the Vaults of Erudition, the place where he keeps his most guarded possessions." At this, the two Dragonborn shared a grimace. "Then, while there, a fëa without a hröar, I found it!"

"What?" asked Leara, her eagerness getting the better of her as she quite forgot that this was her mortal (immortal?) enemy, that he was dragging her to parts unknown after having her elfnapped, and that she didn't know what fëa or hröar were or what those words meant.

"I found Mora's collection of Horcruxes!"

"Uh," Leara blinked, trying to remember something before she snapped the fingers of her free hand in realization. "I know what those are! They're objects in which one places a piece of their soul after they've killed. The more people you done did so wrong, the more Horcruxes you can make!" She looked to Miraak for affirmation, which he gave in the form of vigorous nodding. Then Leara frowned as something else occured to her. "You can't destroy them with common weapons though, you need something so magically inept..."

Miraak dropped Leara's hand and pulled out a dwarven dagger (not to be confused with the dwarves of Middle-earth) and held it up in the light. Keening.

"You sly dog! Where'd you get that?"

"You left it when you came to the summit," the First Dragonborn explained.

"You mean...? The one the Arch Mage has is fake?!"

"Well, yes, illusionary magic, you know. Hers is really just a quill."

Leara Rose-blade gave him a piercing glare. "So you stole my boss's ancient Dwemer dwarven weapon thing and used it to destroy the Horcruxes of Hermaeus Mora. And then, what did you do? Kick his butt to the Deadlands?"

"Yes actually," Miraak laughed. It was weird when he laughed. "It was quite refreshing. And so, after casting down the Demon of Knowledge, I became—"

"The Daedric Lord of Knowledge," Leara sighed. "That is so cliché!"

"Is not!" Miraak cried, bringing them to a halt.

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is..." Leara paused, "not!"

"Is too!"

"Ha!" the high elf exclaimed. "You just admitted that it was cliché!"

"You...you tricked me into it!" Miraak whined.

"I will not deny that," Leara Rose-blade grinned before smacking the Nord-turned-Daedric-Lord. "Cease thy whining and whingeing, Mira Mora."

Miraak rubbed the back of his head. "Don't call me that... Lee Air." Leara blinked. "Lee Bee?" Another blink. "What's your first name? Mareleth? Mare bear?"

"I've been called all those names and more already by nicer people than you." Leara laid a sympathetic hand on the elder Dragonborn's shoulder. "Quit trying."

Glowering, Miraak proceeded to grab Leara by the arm once more and began to drag her along the tunnel.

"Where are we going?" Leara asked.

"Oh, shut up, Rose-blade!"

Along the tunnel they went, winding through various passages and pathways, before, at last, they emerged on an outcropping of stone, sorta like a balcony, that over looked a humongous cavern, the very depths of which Leara Rose-blade could not see.

"What is this place?" Leara inquired.

Miraak didn't answer as, from below, the sound of beating drums began to vibrate the walls. Somewhere, an electric guitar was playing an 80's style kind of riff, though since neither Arda nor Nirn have electric guitars, the specific 80s we're talking about is nearly impossible to find.

Unless you're Doctor Watson, but none of us or you or me are so lucky.

Unless you're Watson and you're reliving the adventure of the Dragonborn and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield and assorted added companions.

Why would you want to relive that?!

Leara Rose-blade looked once more at her fellow Dovahkiin before turning again to the cavern below that was filled with the strange music.

And as she watched, she saw her friends ("Stormy! Oaky! Blondie! Those other guys! ...where's the Watsobbit?!") emerge from a tunnel entrance; they were then led to the foot of a great stage where a throne made out of old Barbie dolls and bubblegum stood in the middle. On this strange throne sat the biggest, ugliest, weirdest looking goblin Leara had ever seen: the fat around his neck had formed a warty, oily sack like beard while atop his head was a fluffy, poofy blond wig. He was also covered in excessive amounts of glitter.

Correction: everything here was covered in glitter.

The entire cavern was silent aside from the drums and guitars as Thorin Oakenshield and King Glitter Brains glowered at each other while the former was led up on to the stage by a few small goblins who quickly fled once they'd deposited their cargo.

At last, Glitter Brains spoke.

"You remind me of the dwarf."

"What dwarf?" Thorin asked in a tone of faux innocence.

"The dwarf with the glower!"

"What glower?"

"The glower of majesty!"

"Maja...who?"

"You do!"

"Do what?"

"Remind me of the dwarf!" Glitter Brains then stood from his garish throne. An act that most, if not all, in the cavern had wished that he had not committed. His great gassy girth was horrid to behold even when sitting down, but when standing up...it was the stuff of nightmares. "I saw..." He looked up, almost as if knowing, and met eyes with Miraak, "My conspirator."

The Company of dwarves and Ulfric turned to follow the Great Goblin's line of sight. They immediately went from the weird Miraak to the much more welcome sight that was Leara Rose-blade.

There were cries of "Leara!" "Miss Rose-blade!" "Elf!" "My Hero!" "Dragonborn!" and "Ormand!" taken up amongst the Company. Leara gave them a small wave and smile, despite the danger, and several of them visibly relaxed. She was forced to stop waving when Miraak pulled on her arm.

In an instant, the two were standing next to the Great Goblin and Thorin on the stage where the Barbie doll bubblegum thrown stood.

"Hey Thorin!" Leara Rose-blade said, offering her dwarven friend a wave.

Thorin only nodded, staring wide eyed and open mouthed at the Altmer. After being kidnapped by a dragon and after flying through the air for hours and after playing in a cave and after getting pulled along by the Dragonborn Dracula Daedric Demon Dude, you'd expect her to look rather worse for wear.

Which she did.

But she was smiling, so that seemed to make the bird's nest of red hair, wind burnt skin, and dirty armor melt away. Plus she still had her beloved Dawnbreaker, which no one but Thorin, Ulfric, and possibly some of the Company seemed to notice.

"Hello..." Thorin Oakenshield said, giving her a slight wave.

"Hey, where's—"

"Who art these fiends who boldly entereth into mine kingdom? Foxy knights? Babies? Talking hands?" the Great Goblin demanded, cutting Leara off and drawing everyone's attention to himself.

"Dwarves, your violence," Miraak sighed.

The Great Goblin sneered at Thorin, causing the dwarf king to lean back as he poked him in the chest with a stick. "Dwarves! It would be dwarves. Listen here, Foreign, son of Frame—"

"Thorin, son of Thráin," said son of Thráin cut in.

"Yes, yes...what business do you have in these parts?"

"We're going a-visiting and a-well wishing to our distant relations."

"Lies!" the Great Goblin howled as he straightened up. It wasn't the intimidating gesture he most likely saw it as, but a flouncing of fat rolls. "I am the Goblin King—"

"The Great Goblin," Miraak corrected.

"—and I know ALL about wishes!" The Great Goblin rounded on Leara, who stood, rather chilled out, with her arms at her sides and a bored expression. "You! You wish that your cousin would stop clogging up your Mer Space© inbox with pictures of his family on their vay cay to Alinor!"

"Idiots," Leara sighed, "They're all idiots."

The Great Goblin only blinked at her before turning to Thorin. "And you! You wish that Ulfric Stormcloak, whoever in Thor's name that is, would fall off of a cliff!"

Ulfric let out an aghast, "Hey!" while Thorin just shrugged. "I shall not deny it."

"And you!" He now turned to Kíli. "You wish Leara Rose-blade would let you hold her sword!"

Leara glared at the dwarven archer. "Not on your life, ruggamuffin."

"And you — you — you — you..."

"He sounds like a broken tape recorder," Ori mused. Again something that is too far advanced for Arda or Nirn is brought up.

Dori opened his mouth to reprimand his baby brother before deciding that he was, indeed, quite right in this case.

Truthfully we're glad that Dori has stopped repeating himself.

"Zip it doofus," Leara Rose-blade commanded, staring down the Great Goblin, who instantly stopped spouting 'you — you — you' over and over again.

The only sound throughout the cavern, great immense place that it was, was Miraak, Thorin, and Ulfric all simultaneously face palming before turning to growl at each other.

Everyone ignored them.

"I'm thinking..." Fíli began.

"We should watch Barney and Friends©?" Kíli asked, a strange but eager look coming over his face.

"Yeah — no!"

"Yay — wait, why not?!" Kíli demanded with a whine.

"You're too old for Barney, kiddo," Leara Rose-blade said, patting his shoulder in a show of comfort. Everyone stared at her.

·•*°*•·

_Maybe watching_ Labyrinth _will make me feel better. Not that I feel bad or anything. I was just...awake until 4:15 am. I think I ordered a Loki doll off of Amazon? I can't remember. Someone should take the wifi from me after midnight. _

_Anyway._

_Join us next time when Odahviing gets lost and Gandalf tries to be majestic. _


	12. Odah the Magic Dragon

_Hi, happy Thursday — or whatever day it is for you. It's that time again, that time when we must get ready for Odahviing and Gandalf to screw around and be dramatic. Here we go. _

·•*°*•·

**_Chapter Twelve — Odah the Magic Dragon_**

Odahviing liked to think he was popular. Sure, he was at the Dragonborn's beck and call...and Paarthurnax's...and Durnehviir's when he wanted to play Parcheesi or watch football or hangout or something.

Okay, so, he was like the servant of the Leaders of all the Dragons (they needed a better title) and the undead protector of the Soul Cairn. But so what? He got to go on awesome adventures...whenever Leara called on him. He'd flown her into Oblivion! He had helped her defeat that tentacle dragon weirdo — from the sky!

Although...it seemed what's his face might be back if the appearance of his serpentine dragon meant anything. But he was going to get back at Sahrotaar for kidnapping HIS elf! The servant will bow to the hunter!

As he plotted Sahrotaar's second (third?) demise, Odahviing swooped low over the sloping peaks of the Misty Mountains, searching for the glinting grey hide of his recently returned nemesis. Of course (and he didn't know it) Sahrotaar had already deposited his Leara in the cavern and had proceeded to crawl into the adjoining cave complex for a nap, making it impossible for Odahviing to see either of them. The great red Dovah huffed and puffed before doubling back to the...whatever the space between the mountains and the not so secret hidden shiny place was called. As he flew low over the ground, sniffing in distaste at the amount of bunny tracks left by Radagast VII 'the Brown', he spied in the distance Gandalf the Grey, some blonde elf chic, Agent Smith, and Count Dumbledore, or was it Professor Dracula van Dooku? Wizards were quite confusing with their weird little names.

The four appeared to be arguing, though about what, Odahviing was not sure.

Naturally, he had to butt his large horned head in.

"Remove them and Dr. Watson from Middle-earth! They don't belong here!" Count Dumbledore raged.

"I don't know," the blonde lady sighed in a disturbing dreamy manner. "Her tall blond friend is so..."

"What would Celeborn say?" queried Agent Smith.

"Shut up Elrond!"

"You are all missing the point! Leara Rose-blade is a brilliant individual who can — oh."

It was then that the four noticed Odahviing.

"You're eavesdropping," Albus the White pointed out the blatant truth.

"Is it really eavesdropping when the four of you are standing in the middle of a field where everyone and their grandpa can hear, see, and, dare I say, smell you?" Odahviing questioned, raising one of his boney eyebrows.

"He has a point," mused Elrond.

"Shut up Elrond!" Then the blonde chic hit Elrond on the back of his head.

"Ow! Woman! That's CHILD abuse!" Elrond shrieked, hopping away from her. "What would Celeborn say, Galadriel? What would CELEBRÍAN say?!"

"How is that child abuse?" the irate Galadriel demanded.

"You're like...over a thousand or something years older than me!" pointed out Elrond from behind Professor Dooku, who looked bored to the point of tears with...everything.

It's obvious that with his identity confusion, Saruman probably needs therapy. He and the Great Goblin could probably help pay for joint group sessions in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith.

Galadriel then proceeded to chase Elrond around Saruman, who let out a weary sigh over their childish antics. Both Gandalf and Odahviing watched these strange and not very elf like actions for a few minutes before the wizard turned to the dragon.

"Can we fly out of here?" Gandalf asked.

"Certainly," agreed Odahviing.

By the time the irate elf queen, the bored Istar, and the self proclaimed to be abused Elrond realized that Gandalf and the larger elder sibling of Smaug from another world were gone, it was too late to stop them. They stood there in a lopsided little row watching the pair fly back toward the Misty Mountains. When they disappeared from sight, Galadriel turned to her two fellow members of the White Council. "Do you guys want to go watch movies and criticize Cate Blanchett's bad acting?"

Saruman shook his head, "I have to go to therapy. My psychologist says I really need to start reaching out to my old family." What he means when he says this is that he's talking about meeting up with Mairon, who is also Sauron, and with Aulë, who is also Mahal, Thorin and Co.'s technical ancestral great granddaddy. That family reunion could go many ways.

"I'm probably going to need therapy," whimpered Elrond, thinking of his poor ruined garden and the disarray of his entire valley.

"Suck it up, buttercup," Galadriel sniffed before turning on her heel and ditching the pair.

Neither Odahviing nor Gandalf were privy to this conversation as they attempted to fly in a majestical fashion off into the sunset.

Except, of course, that it was the middle of the day and they were heading east.

Anyway, they thought the image of an old wise wizard on the back of an ancient dragon would look majestic; so the Narrator, who must give her begrudging agreement, will roll with that.

"Where'd Miss Rose-blade, Mr. Baggins, Mr. Stormcloak, and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield get off to, anyway?" Gandalf asked after a while of puffing at his pipe from where he sat on Odahviing's back.

If Odahviing could shrug, he would have. As it was, he scowled his best Dovah scowl. "The dragon of Leara's sworn enemy, Miraak the First Dragonborn, appeared and took her. I did not stay with the Company to discover what they were doing, nor did I manage to locate Leara Rose-blade and Sahrotaar."

Gandalf gave one of Odahviing's large spikes a comforting pat.

"What do you propose we do, then?" the grey wizard asked after several quiet moments of staring at the passing landscape.

Odahviing was silent for several more minutes before sighing. "I shall have to tear apart space and time to reach her, then."

"That sounds—"

With a mighty roar, Odahviing opened a large swirling portal in the air and dived through it. Gandalf let out a shrill girlish scream when the red dragon did this, not even getting the word 'fascinating' out of his mouth.

They burst out into an uncharacteristically ultra hyper blue sky.

"I'm not sure that this is it," Odahviing mumbled, ignoring or not noticing Gandalf attached to one of his spikes as of it were a security blanket.

Far below...

"What do you want to do today Ferb?" the green haired guy pointed up. "Woah! Hey! Candace! There's a dragon in the sky!"

Inside...

"Uh huh, yeah, totally Stacy. A dragon? Phineas and Ferb? A screaming old guy? I don't..." Candace looked out the window. "I'll call you back Stacy." She snapped her phone shut. "MOM! PHINEAS AND FERB UNLEASHED A GIANT RED DRAGON!"

"That's nice honey!"

Up in the air...

"Nope, definitely not the right place," Odahviing huffed in agitation before roaring again and shooting forward through the new portal...

...and out into outter space.

On the dragon's back, Gandalf started turning blue. Odahviing, on the other hand, seemed quite unaffected by the lack of an oxygen enriched atmosphere. He started observing the giant space battle going on before them.

Two Delta-7 Jedi Starfighters, one red and the other yellow, flew passed them. Yellow was chasing the droid tri-fighters while red, in turn, was the one being chased.

"This isn't it either..." rumbled Odahviing before opening yet another portal; this one formed near a large Republic cruiser.

Several explosions went off as he flew through the portal. On the other side, Gandalf popped back up, gasping for air and making an uncanny impression of a Hoover. Although, Arda and Nirn don't have Hoovers, the place that they showed up in, well...

Odahviing screeched to a halt in midair as a giant spaceship hurtled into a humongous clock tower and flipped over into a river. All around were buildings made of—

A large spaceship destroyed Big Ben, crashed into the Themes, caused mass panic in London (and the world), and had a pig in a pilot suit.

It was the beginning of World War III.

The dragon and the wizard stared at the strange carnage that spiraled out below them. "This is also not it," Odahviing puffed.

He roared. The portal opened. They went through. Again and again and again and again...

Then they burst out into a large cavern and...barreled into the stone wall.

"Ow, my head," the dragon moaned, rubbing at it with his foreleg.

Gandalf didn't speak; instead, he slumped over and groaned, looking quite green in face.

After several minutes of moaning, groaning, oh's and ow's, Odahviing's head perked up. He sniffed at the air — loudly — several times before he clawed his way to his...claws once more.

"What?" whined Gandalf, who still felt somewhat ill after their flight through the multiverse.

"I smell Leara!" Odahviing cried in excitement before taking off down a side tunnel in the cavern they were in (trampling Leara's dust pictures in the process when he scrambled across the floor). He forced his way through the entrance, enlarging the tunnel with dramatical ease, as Gandalf let out a symphony of girlish screaming on his back.

·•*°*•·

_So Odahviing accidentally dragged Gandalf into_ Phineas and Ferb, Doctor Who _(S01E05), and _Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith. _Fun times. Well, at least they missed out on Galadriel being mean to herself, er, Cate Blanchett. I guess Galadriel is just jealous of...herself, Cate Blanchett. Elves are odd. _

_Join us next time when Leara disses the 80s theme and things get shouty._


	13. The Empress' New Groove

_The last few days have been a rollercoaster for me. I managed to claw myself out of my post - _Avengers: Endgame _feels with the newest episode of _DuckTales, The Duck Knight Returns, _and oh. My. Gosh! It makes me so happy still to think about it! I was on cloud nine yesterday all because of it and...that ending. Oh that ending! _

_That's the highlight of my life in the last two weeks. I've got a few dark spots I'd rather not talk about. Instead, let's get dangerous and join Leara and Co. since, as you know, they're in danger._

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Thirteen — The Empress' New Groove**_

"I feel so stupid."

"You look stupid."

Leara Rose-blade glared at Thorin Oakenshield. If elves could shoot glitter lasers from their eyes, Thorin would look worse than a sparkling vampire.

"You don't look that bad!" Ulfric Stormcloak cried from where he stood, huddled with the dwarves minus Thorin before the Great Goblin's glittery stage. Leara looked down at the dated ensemble she wore, which consisted of a long sleeved white blouse with poet sleeves, a patterned vast, blue jeans and brown loafers. She then looked back at Ulfric, shooting him a furious glare.

"I look like a child!" she cried, stomping her foot. "And they took away my armor! And Dawnbreaker!"

Off to the side, Miraak face palmed. "Will you just shut up, woman?!"

Leara rounded on the other Dragonborn angrily. "Excuse me? Excuse me? Did you just tell me to shut up when you're the one who stole all my stuff?!"

"I didn't steal it," Miraak growled, growing defensive. "It's all in the chest over there." He jabbed his thumb in the direction of a padlocked chest half hidden behind the Barbie doll and bubblegum throne.

Leara stared at the chest, then Miraak, then the chest, then herself, then Miraak again, then the chest once more, and then finally she turned to Thorin, Ulfric, and the Company. "We're ditching this joint."

"Nuh uh uh, not so fast," the Great Goblin said, shuffling toward them while fluffing his poofy blond wig.

"What do you want now?" the Last Dragonborn demanded, her hands on her hips and an angular red eyebrow raised almost to the middle of her forehead.

Because eyebrows can't really just shoot into your hairline. Your whole skin and face and stuff would mess up and contort weird.

Like if your jaw actually fell to the floor. That'd hurt.

Moving on.

"What do you want?" Leara Rose-blade repeated. "Because this...this is throwing off my groove. Not your groove, although, I don't think either of you—" she leveled a particularly harsh glare at Miraak, "—actually have any. So, my groove. Which you two are throwing off. Especially with this totally not groovy eighties nerd getup you made me put on in place of my rocking groovy armor. I mean, it throws my groove off in a horribly not groovy way! Not groovy dude, not groovy. So I ask again, what do you want?!"

Miraak blinked at her. "I want you to come back to Oblivion with me..."

"I want to give Thorin Oakenshield's head to the Pale Orc..."

"What?" Thorin cried in horror.

"Shut up, Oaky," Leara snapped at the dwarf before turning to face the two minor antagonists. "Me, me, me, me, me! That's all I hear from you two! What happened to chivalry? To honor? You kidnapped the Dragonborn and you're expecting to win?" Leara threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. "Not only is that not groovy, it's downright knavery! In what universe do a troll and dragon—"

"The Great Goblin and the First Dragonborn," Miraak corrected.

"—a troll and a dragon beat the Dragonborn of legend! The Rose of the West! Skyrim's Storm-blade! The mighty Dov Ah Kiin!"

"Here she goes again..." moaned Ulfric, who was joined by several of the dwarves. Well, all except Kíli, who was cheering Leara Rose-blade on.

"—heir to the Septims!" Leara went on, ignoring them. "The savior of Tamriel! The Empress of..." And at last she trailed off, having gone blank. "Um."

"The Empress of Groove!" Kíli suggested from the sidelines.

Leara Rose-blade turned and stared at him. Kíli began to fidget with nervousness. What if she thought his suggestion was stupid? What if she kicked him? What if she laughed at him? He'd rather have to face Smaug the Terribly Titanic alone than have anything like that happen!

"Kíli..." Leara began and the dwarf flinched. "Kíli...that was, like, your best idea ever in the entire history of Arda and Nirn!"

The young dwarf looked at her, awestruck. "It is?"

"No," Ulfric and Thorin said before glaring at each other, again. They really need to stop mimicking each other.

"Yes!" Leara Rose-blade cried, jumping up and down with enthusiasm. She then turned to the very unimpressed Miraak and Great Goblin. "Did you hear him? I am the Empress of Groove! Obey me or despair!"

The two minor antagonists exchanged looks before Miraak stepped forward and took Leara by the wrist. She stared at him.

"Listen, Leara, this Middle-earth is no place for you and me and—" he glanced over at Ulfric with a look of distaste, "—that thing you drag around."

"Hey!" said Thing cried in indignation.

Miraak and Leara ignored him.

"You are a very powerful being, you know, and you should really use that power to the fullest," he went on, releasing her wrist and throwing his arm around the half-elf's shoulders. "To do so, you should really—"

"Go to Apocrypha with you? Or what do you call it these days? Miraak's Maiming Madhouse?" Leara threw off his arm and tried to push him away from her. When that didn't work, she tried to stomp on his foot, but his heavy boots prevented her from doing any real damage. At last, she just backed away and crossed her arms, deciding to glower at him instead.

"No, it's still called Apocrypha..."

"Look, are we going to get on with this or what?" the Great Goblin demanded, stomping forward and shoving the two Dragonborn apart from each other.

"On with what?" Leara asked.

"Why, with my stage musical of course! It's called — 'The Maze'!" the Great Goblin told her with a flourish and a bow.

Miraak face palmed — again — while everyone else just stared at him.

"You will be the protagonist, a young girl who is jealous of her baby brother—" he pointed at Miraak, "—and wishes him away to the Goblin King, me!"

"And what about me?" inquired a reluctantly curious Thorin Oakenshield.

"Oh, you're just an ugly little dwarf who helps the lovely protagonist in her search to rescue her brother from me," the Great Goblin said with a flippant and especially absentminded wave of his hand at Thorin, who scowled at this display.

Ulfric stared at them from the sidelines. "This is madness."

"No, mate, this is politics," Kíli corrected him.

The other dwarves and Ulfric turned and stared at him. "How is this politics?" Bofur asked.

Kíli shrugged. "Well, Uncle is a king, the Great Goblin is technically an orcish war chief, and that Miraak fellow is some kind of powerful being from the realm of Oblivion. And Leara..." his face contorted into a stupid grin, "is the great Empress of Groove!"

Until the end, everyone had been nodding along in agreement, for once finding Kíli's words intelligent in nature. Then... "Quit calling her that, you git!" Fíli exclaimed, bopping his younger brother on the head.

Leara Rose-blade, who was beginning to berate herself for not killing Miraak when he had first shown back up, cleared her throat, making a rather loud noise that sounded like a lawnmower. No one listened. The dwarves and Ulfric were arguing over what to call her, Thorin was running away from Miraak, who was trying to force an ugly costume on him, and the Great Goblin was directing all the little goblins in the final preparations for his set. Glowering, the Dragonborn cleared her throat again, replete with more lawnmower effects, but still no one payed her any mind. With a growl, Leara opened her mouth.

"FUS—"

Heads began to turn, and the faces of everyone who had witnessed her Thu'um before went pale (except for Miraak's, because he has a reputation to uphold).

"—RO—"

The goblins all stared at the half-elf with rather dumb expressions on their grotesque little faces as Ulfric, Miraak, and the dwarves all ducked for cover.

"—DAH!"

And then the lights went out.

·•*°*•·

_Leara's her own kind of superhero, isn't she? _

_I never say this, but I think it must be said: Leara isn't as goody as she is portrayed in _An Unexpected Dragonborn_. If you read any of her _Tamriel Tidbits, _you'll find a more mature, sharp minded and tender hearted heroine than this goofy incarnation. To be fair, this one was characterized years ago and a fair while before I developed the more serious!Leara's personality. _

_Join us next time when Dr. Watson pulls a Sherlock and fit hits the shan. _


	14. The World's Only Consulting Hobbit

**_Crawls up from the sewers._**

_Hey . . . ! I didn't mean to take a month off, but you know, oops? Between family episodes and attempts to draw ducks, everytime I thought about posting, I was distracted. But things have calmed down now (for the moment, at least; they never stay that way) and so here I am with the promised John pulls a Sherlock chapter. _

_Thank you to those who reviewed._

·•*°*•·

_**Chapter Fourteen — The World's Only Consulting Hobbit**_

Dr. John Watson, formerly of 221b Baker Street, wasn't entirely proud to say that he was used to mad and peculiar things happening to him, thank you very much. And if asked, he would definitely list the riddle game with the creature that called himself Gollum and 'Precious' with alarming frequency as one of the strangest experiences ever to befall him.

As their riddle game progressed, Gollum became more and more agitated with him and he became more and more befuddled, trying to trick the odd creature into losing the game.

It wasn't working.

The Watsobbit pursed his lips and frowned down at Gollum, who sat, perched on a rock, and watched him with far more interest than anyone ever had before in his entire life! Well, except maybe Sherlock, but it was hard to tell with him sometimes.

"Okay," began the Watsobbit.

"Let's have another riddle," Gollum grinned, looking rather ghoulish.

"Er..." John Watson hesitated.

"Go on."

"Err..."

"Riddles?"

"Erm..."

"Watsonses?"

"...I have a better idea than another riddle," Dr. Watson said before he realized what he was even saying.

"Better than riddles?" Gollum looked at him, a light of suspicion turning on in his already lightbulb like eyes. "What's better than riddles...my precious?"

Having put his foot in it, Dr. Watson decided to plunge the rest of the way into the proverbial maelstrom that he had called upon. "Yes, it's...it's as good as your precious...it's...the...Science of Deduction!"

Sherlock was going to kill him.

Gollum looked at John Watson like he'd just sprouted wings and called himself a dragon. "The Sciences of Deductionses...what is the Sciences of Deductionses? Show us, precious, show us!"

John Watson gulped.

Sherlock would probably make his death look like a very painful accident.

"Well..." he began, looking around the cave lit by creepy, unseen backlights. "You've been here a very long time — longer than a hundred years, I'd wager. You don't eat much, except fish, which you catch...by hand. You also seldom, if ever, talk to people...or actually anything, really. You're lonely, and that's what your precious is for — to keep you company, but sometimes that isn't enough so that's why you like riddle games, because they occupy your mind and, if you ever have someone to play them with, it makes them keep you company, too." John Watson's mind raced, searching for anything else that he could take a crack at deducing about this peculiar creature. Then a thought occurred to him, dimly, but he took a stab at it. What could he lose at this point, anyway? "...and your precious...it's something that goes on your finger, isn't it? You don't always wear it, but it's important to you; it was a gift, likely from a brother or male friend because if it was from a woman, you would wear it more often, probably all of the time." And then... "And because you love your gift so much, anything else that shows you any sort of good attention is also called precious, because..."

"Because?"

"Because..." Dr. Wataon trailed off. "Because calling things precious...you associate them with the person who gave it to you...but," he stopped as something clicked in the back of his head and John Watson suddenly wondered if this was how Sherlock Holmes felt when he found himself doing deductions and discovering a criminal in the process. "You always end up chasing them away or killing them...just like you killed your friend."

He froze, waiting to see if Gollum would attack him and wishing, not for the last time, that he had his gun.

Instead, Gollum stared at him, fixated, for several long moments. He stared at him for so long that John Watson could almost fill the mustache that was trying to grow on his face.

"How does it know these things, precious? How did it learn?"

Gollum's voice startled John Watson so badly that he nearly stumbled back over a rock and into the underground lake beside him.

"How do I...know those things?" he questioned.

"Yesss," Gollum hissed.

Dr. Watson cleared his throat three or four times before answering, having not expected the creature to ask such a question, anyway. "I know you've been here a long time because your eyes have adapted to the dark, which doesn't happen in a week. Knowing that your diet really consists of fish — and the occasional goblin — is only logical, really, because what else lives down here besides you and them?" Gollum looked like he was ready to tell John what else lived down there in the shadows of the roots of the mountains, but the Watsobbit barrelled into his next explanation before he could. "And that's why you also don't talk much to people, unless you were to talk to your food. The chicken and coleslaw and stuff," he gave a dry, humorless laugh that Gollum didn't participate with. "I know your precious must go on your finger because there's a clear indenture on your right hand middle finger where something like a ring would go. You talk to it because it's your last connection to your friend, and even if it's weird — who's here to tell you otherwise? I mean, besides the fact that there's really no one here to do that, we've all had that little toy or trinket we've spoken to." John Watson hesitated again, at the end, before saying the last part very quickly — "and I know it was the friend who gave your precious to you that you killed because, if it was anyone else, you likely would have left it, and I know you killed them because why else would you be here in such a bloody awful place if you didn't do something so unforgivable?"

Gollum stared at him with his very wide, very pale, very luminous eyes, and it was only because he was a soldier and a doctor and an Englishman that John Watson managed to return the wide-eyed stare with a rigid back and an upturned nose.

Neither of them blinked.

Slowly, ever so painstaking and slow, a horrible and devilish smirk spread across Gollum's wan waxen face.

"Oh it's clever, yesss. Such a smart Watsonses, yesss. It doesn't know when to keep it's ideases to its self! It doesn't know when it needs to — shuts — up!"

With that, Gollum lunged at John Watson, and would've gotten him too, if it weren't for the Doctor's meddling reflexes.

Dr. Watson scrambled over the rocks and down the tunnel, Gollum in hot pursuit, and both were screaming.

It was almost like a round of Need for Speed or Grand Theft Auto, but without the girls or cars and with 'getting stoned' having a completely different meaning.

As in, they both kept running into walls. Did we mention the screaming?

"Come backs here! We's has to make its into coleslaw!" screeched Gollum, bounding behind John Watson on all fours like a dog or a moose or a stampeding rabbit.

John grappled about in the pockets of his Bilbo Baggins costume, hoping that a miracle had caused his gun to show up in one of them in the past ten minutes.

It hadn't.

Entirely by accident, John Watson's finger slipped into the ring which he had entirely forgotten about after becoming concerned to distraction over Leara Rose-blade's iPod and his own safety.

Naturally, or unnaturally, maybe supernaturally, Dr. John Watson turned invisible and completely vanished out of sight.

Of course, he didn't know that, so he kept running like he had a snake biting at his heels, although at this point he had lost enough of his initial shock (read: fright) to stop screaming. Gollum, however, did notice, and he took the opportunity to stop and screach and curse and whine and complain in general rage at the 'slyness and wickedness of the horrid Watsonses'!

The pitiful creature collapsed on the ground, kicking and beating his fists against the rocks and getting kinda stoned all over. "My precious! My precious is gone! He stoles it from us! Thief! Horrid, wicked, Watsonses!" he sobbed, sounding rather wretched, in fact.

Dr Watson glanced over his shoulder to see the creature flailing about on the ground in agony. He almost felt sorry enough to stop and go back and apologize and offer him tea and biscuits and maybe a hug.

But even though he was a proper Englishman, he was still John Watson, and John Watson didn't do that with people who had painted a proverbial target on his back. In fact, he usually shot them, but since he didn't have his gun, he was just going to walk away.

Which he did.

"We hates it! We hates it forever!" Gollum's echoing wail followed him as he trekked down the dark passage, flipping through the music selection on the little red iPod.

"Taylor Swift, eh? Why am I not surprised..."

·•*°*•·

_And that was Göllum, ladies and gentlemen! Everyone give him and John a round of applause! _

_Join us next time (whenever that is XD) when Leara and Co. try to bust out of the Cavern Beyond the Goblin City with some . . . interesting results._


End file.
